


Fortune Favors the Brave

by TamerLorika



Category: Dragons: Riders of Berk (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Implied Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Toothless, Other, and also lots of explosions, fighting giant monsters, focuses on the relationships between riders and dragons, hiccup in a fisherman's sweater just think of it, read it however you want though i don't feel like defining their relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-20 04:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 33,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5992246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TamerLorika/pseuds/TamerLorika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fighting monsters is what the Riders of Berk DO--but they've never faced a challenge as great as aliens from another universe, crawling up out of the sea. </p><p>But there is no question: Drift technology was MADE for the dragons and riders. Hiccup and Toothless and their friends are not the type to leave their homes undefended. It's time for them to face Planet Earth's greatest challenge.</p><p>At the edge of their hope, and at the end of their time, not a man, woman, or dragon will stand alone. Not today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This just in: I make bad decisions and do things like this rather than writing for deadlines. 
> 
> Worldbuilding, linguistics, and explorations of rider/dragon pairs are really fascinating to me, okay?

The thing about Berk was that it was so isolated, so completely removed and in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, that if today hadn’t been one of the rare days when the wind had been blowing _just right_ , and the rabbit ears on the blocky TV in Gobber’s machine-shop-turned-convenience-store hadn’t been pointed _just so…_ they might not have known about it until much, much later.

The wind, however, _had_ been just right—which was to say, stagnant and terrible for flying. One by one, each of the young regulars at Gobber’s had trickled in to nurse lukewarm bottles of Coke and curl into the pile of junk scattered round the garage. Each spot had been picked strategically so that each teen could keep one eye on the only TV on the island, while leaving enough room for their companions to stretch out.

Hiccup had been the last to throw in the towel, which was a surprise to no one, including his partner, who had been trying to get him to turn back to land for almost an hour. There was only so much flapping one could do when no updrafts were to be found. Finally, even Hiccup succumbed to the ravages of the feckless weather and he, and Toothless, sauntered into the cold, iron-scented garage, just as the world came to an end.

 

* * *

 

It had started out as one of the strangely interminable, acid spring days. A still snap of dry cold landed ponderously in the midst of a hope that the deepest of winter might have receded for the island.

Fishlegs gave in first, towing poor Meatlug, who often strained on anything but the most perfect wind. All of the garage bay doors were open already, Gobber inside the shop trying to talk Mulch into bringing his rusted shell of a pickup in to finally scrap for parts.

Meatlug, exhausted already, curled herself onto a pile of nuts and bolts, munching happily while Fishlegs picked his way around the dessicated pieces of the refrigerator that Gobber was trying to repair this week. The TV flickered on with a static groan as Fishlegs smacked the “on” knob.

“Oh, sweet, it’s working!” Snotlout yelped, tumbling ungracefully from Hookfang’s back and leaping to shove Fishlegs out of the way. “I want to watch football!”

 “Snotlout, I was here first,” Fishlegs protested. “ _Orange Marmalade_ is on and they just translated it! Besides, weren’t you and Hookfang doing okay out there?”

Wider wingspan had, at first, led to wider success, with the huge dragon able to reach greedily for any scrap of updraft that they could find.

“Yeah, well. Whatever. We _were_ doing fine.” Snotlout leveled a glare at the Nightmare, who had flopped unconcernedly in the dirt just outside the garage. “But he – _I –_ I decided to call it a day.”

For a brief moment, as if summoned, Hookfang blew an innocuous fireball into the dirt in protest, and then went back to ignoring everyone.

“Well, the match just started,” complained Fishlegs, “and _Strákarnir okkar_ never score in the first half anyway, so let me have just half an hour to—“

“No, it’s _Belch’s_ wings that wouldn’t catch!” came the whine from outside, which caused both of the young men inside to groan and even Hookfang to look up in faint alarm.

“They _share wings_ ,” the second whine sounded.

“Well, clearly you’re too heavy then!”

“Barf can lift me just fine, but Belch looks like he’s gonna _drop_ you!”

“No, no, no, if you brought them, you’re goin’ tae have t’ get out.” Gobber sauntered into the garage, wiping his good hand with a kerchief tied to his belt and shooing the curious Meatlug away from sniffing hungrily at his refrigerator motor.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut burst into the garage anyway, both hanging from their Zippleback’s necks and furiously failing to do chin-ups. They were still shouting.

“Oi, enough!”

Barf dodged left, Belch dodged right, and neither could move their body in time to scatter properly as Stormfly descended in a somewhat graceful flutter. Astrid was off her before she touched the ground, striding into the garage like she owned it and butting Snotlout away from the TV. “ _Orange Marmalade_ is on, and I sure as Hellheim am not missing it for _any_ interruption, not even you two.”

“Oh, aye, sure ye can use mah television,” Gobber snarked, yanking his rolling worktable out from under the nose of a determined and peckish Meatlug. “Just make yerselves comfortable.”

Predictably, no one listened—in fact, no one said a blessed thing for almost five minutes. Between Astrid and Fishlegs’ rapt attention on the screen, Snotlout trying and failing to project his enjoyment of Astrid’s favorite soap, and the twins raiding the icebox in the shop for pop, things were almost…peaceful.

“Where’s your fearless leader?” Gobber grumbled, mostly to himself. People blamed the twins for constantly causing trouble, but the truth of the matter was that the deepest, most terrifying kinds of troubles came from none other than Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.

“Shh!” Astrid and Fishlegs hissed, both as close to the TV as they could get and still see it. Stormfly chirped and mimicked the shushing noise, setting off sparks through her teeth.

It was then that the Klaxon of the emergency alert signal blared through the television, eerie in its muffled and metallic state.

The dragons—even Hookfang—were immediately on their feet, growling and sparking furiously. That was how Hiccup found them as he and Toothless strolled into the shop, Toothless breaking off clicking complaints about his aching wings.

“What the—“ was the only thing that Hiccup said, before the news reel began to play.

The sound of the Kaiju roar through the shitty, tinny speakers of the decades-old TV; the way the sound echoed, otherworldly, in the dead silence of the oily concrete; the vibrating tension of muscles drawn tight in years’ worth of fight or flight response—Hiccup and Toothless never forgot any of it, in whatever years of their lives they had left. Some things changed a life so much they could not be erased.

Even the dragons had ceased their warning growls. Fishlegs was the first to break the horrified silence.

“That isn’t a dragon.”

The others nodded their assent, not sure if they were relieved or not. It hadn’t been long, maybe a handful of years, since uncovering the Queen of Dragons, the Red Death. They all—even Snotlout, even Astrid—woke up sweat-trenched at times with her earth-shaking roar in their ears.

This, however, was so much different. This was worse.

As the news crews on the television circled out of the way of helicopters and missiles, one by one every eye turned to Hiccup and Toothless. Gobber found himself caught just like the others, turning for answers to the odd pair.

No one outside Berk would understand the pull to the two, not really, even if they knew about the existence of dragons (and it was the life’s work of the citizens of Berk that they did not). Toothless was impressive on his own, his jet black scales and lethal speed projecting a cold and deadly power that rode softly in this eyes, his breath, in every beat of his wings and across his hunched shoulders. No one, at first glance, noticed the flaming red of his tail prosthesis, the complicated span of his harness. _Terror_ , unresolvable and automatic, stalked a creature as unknown and dangerous as Toothless, when he was in the mood to intimidate.

In contrast, the young man at his side inspired no such fear. Even at twenty, his narrow shoulders were dwarfed by a thick Fisherman’s sweater, his left leg winking silver in the light and subtly hobbling his gait. Hiccup had matured from his stringy teen days, but his face remained slightly rounded and unbearded as ever, his hair an unruly clump as often as not as it was either tangled hopelessly or pulled back in haphazard braids as the mood or need struck.

Those who underestimated Hiccup, however, or questioned his place at Toothless’ side, did not do so long. Seeing them ride, reckless and fearless and clever as a knife, headlong against trouble, either inspired trust in the men and women and dragons at their sides, or the unmitigated defeat of those who dared stand in their way.

Now they stood crouched, shoulders high and bodies taut with the need to _fight_ , Hiccup braced on Toothless’ flank as if to mount and race headlong into danger. The soft, constant snarl in Toothless’ throat ran counterpoint to a gurgling noise that was a human approximation of the same. Hiccup and Toothless were ready to do battle.

On the other side of the world, nuclear bombs were being deployed against a people already torn apart by monsters from another universe.

On this side, Hiccup and Toothless faced the first challenge that they, by virtue of chance, of geography, of terrestrial weakness were simply unable to fight.

But Gobber and Astrid and Fishlegs and Snotlout and Ruff and Tuff looked to them anyway, because all of them knew the truth—

The Dragon Riders of Berk would not be kept helpless for long.


	2. Stoick's Regrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events of the rest of this story occur in 2016 and onward, shortly following Onibaba's iconic May 15th attack on Tokyo. Hiccup and the others are 23. In Berk-verse, the events of How to Train Your Dragon have occurred, as well as up to Season 4 of Riders/Race to the Edge. The second movie has not. Yet.
> 
> If you notice my PR timeline is off, please do let me know.

“They’re not going to stop,” Hiccup told Stoick.

The world had come to this conclusion within thirty-six months and a dozen separate attacks. The news stank of toxic blue and politicians desperate for a ray of hope. Shiny chrome soldiers dozens of stories tall stood in he harbors of Vladivostok, Los Angeles, and Brisbane. They were ready, because they had to be. The Kaiju would keep coming.

When the warning was echoed from this lips of his own son, however, Stoick the Vast could only shake his head and turn away.

“They always stop, eventually,” Stoick told his son. “If you hit them hard enough, all monsters go away eventually.”

This phrase, paraphrased and retranslated but as always full of grit and hope, had been passed to Stoick by his father, and his grandfather before him. It was one of the strongest tenets of an island once home to Vikings and now home to their equally sturdy and determined descendants. Stoick refused to see the backbone and heartsblood of his warrior ancestors drain from the island as the glaciers did, slowly and inevitably.

He stood in the Great Hall, its wooden height solid even in the face of hundreds of years of weather and dragons—the danger of fire and destruction did not just go away, even when the beasts became friends and not foes. Before him, leaning his hip on the shoulder of the one dragon on Berk that Stoick had a hard time relegating to a pet, was Hiccup. There was a time when Stoick feared his son would not amount to the success he wished for him. Now, Stoick’s fears stemmed from Hiccup’s success, and drive, being so terribly high.

His brave, stubborn, clever son did Stoick proud, when he wasn’t scaring the piss out of him.

Hiccup had pulled him aside after dinner that night, two days after Tokyo fell and Coyote Tango bagged its second kill.

“The Jaeger program is working,” Stoick continued to argue, even as he saw Hiccup’s chin tip up. That was never a good sign.

“The Jaeger program is _hanging on_ ,” Hiccup argued. “They’re defending, but they’re not stopping any of these things getting through. You saw what happened when Romeo and Ronin hit the Breach—nothing.”

Stoick shook his head heavily, giving into the temptation to pace, trying to ignore the pressure of two pairs of damnably stubborn green eyes following him.

“But what are ye goin’ tae _do_ , Hiccup?” Stoick challenged him tiredly. “What _can_ ye do, that the entire world full o’ military technology and scientists and giant bleedin’ robots can’t? You know better’n anyone on this island—these things arent’ dragons. They’re not things that you can befriend or subdue. They’re not Her.”

Stoick saw the look Hiccup and Toothless exchanged at the mention of their battle with the Queen of Dragons. The nightmares had been getting worse, for all the Dragon Rider Academy, as they watched their most fearsome of battles replay over and over, worse and more violent each time, as the Kaiju rose in an unconquerable wave.

“We’re not—“

Hiccup faltered, leaning just a little harder against Toothless. One of his hands rested on the nape of his partner’s neck. Toothless nudged him with the side of his head, staring down at Stoick as if to say _Wait. This is important._ “We aren’t trying to subvert the PPDC,” Hiccup sighed finally. “We think we can _help_ them. We want to join the Jaeger academy.”

Stoick’s eyes narrowed. “Join? But who would be your drift partner?”

Hiccup’s shoulders squared, and he suddenly pushed completely to his feet, straight-backed and knees slightly bent as he aced Stoick head-on. The posture was mirrored in Toothless’ shoulders, a classic draconic gesture of challenge. Hiccup was smiling, but the sharp edge of it reminded Stoick more of a baring of teeth.

Stoick knew the answer, then, before Hiccup spoke it.

“Toothless. Toothless and I will drift.”

It would never work. There were too many problems.  Humans and dragons could not possibly meld minds. And barring the practical barriers, the dragons would not even be able to leave Icelandic waters. The dragons weren’t supposed to exist, especially not in a world where creatures that looked like them were threatening mankind.

“Son, ye can’t—“

“Has anyone on this island learned that I _really_ dislike being told I can’t do something?” Hiccup asked, crossing his arms in a gesture that was comforting in its unmistakable humanity.

Stoick had to snort his amusement. It was true; he was learning, if slowly, that some things his son just wouldn’t hear.

“Besides,” Hiccup continued, “ _I_ can’t.” He dropped into a crouch fast, had Toothless’ snout pressed to his forehead in an instant later as they hummed warmly at each other. “But together? We can do anything, Dad. I know that’s true.”

Hit them hard enough, and the monsters would go away. It hadn’t worked for the dragons, but in the end, they hadn’t been monsters at all. Now, however, Hiccup was begging to be the warrior Stoick had always wanted him to be. Stoick had never been more proud, or more scared.

“Tell me your plan,” Stoick ordered wearily, and he saw Hiccup register the fact that he had _won,_ even if those exact, conceding words would never formally leave Stoick’s lips. The man had a reputation to uphold, after all. “And tell me which of your foolish friends are coming with you.”


	3. Syntax

“Well, duh, we’re _all_ coming with you,” Ruffnut of all people had been the first to promise Hiccup. “We wouldn’t miss out on that many explosions.”

With varying grace and accompanying sarcasm and belching noises, the rest of the riders agreed. Their dragons seemed to already have made their decisions as well. Each of the humans punched Hiccup on the arm as they left to make their intensions known to their parents.

“Like you needed to ask,” Astrid scoffed, giving Hiccup the evil eye and hitting him with the raised edge of her ever-present knuckle-dusters. She aimed to bruise, and did so handily. Then she was gone, as well, Stormfly in tow, and Hiccup and Toothless had only themselves to worry over, and had gone back to Stoick’s cabin grateful and warmed by the support—and in Hiccup’s case, with an aching bicep.

When Hiccup and Toothless had lived in the home of Stoick the Vast, they had kept to separate beds. Toothless preferred to light his slab on fire and let it smolder all night; Hiccup would rather not suffer third degree burns and a wrenched neck from sleeping on a rock, if he could help it.

Things changed, however. The Queen of Dragons was only the first challenge—then came the Screaming Death, and Mildew, and Alvin. Hiccup had been struck by lightning; Toothless had been grounded too many times without rudder or rider. They had moved to Dragon’s Edge, where longhouses were precious and no one bothered with much more than building a comfortable corner of the corrugated metal and sod stables that they had erected, and even then only when winter hit hard enough to drive all indoors. Sleeping under the stars was an addiction, and none of the youths or their partners were immune.

They had, every one of them, however, returned to their family homes in the village for their last night before leaving Berk for Kodiak, Alaska. So, here they were again, dragon and rider, navigating the thankfully-broad stairs into the second-story loft that had been Hiccup’s bedroom since he had been old enough to sleep on his own. The house had been retrofitted with exposed piping and electricity, but it was still the solid, unshakeable wood building that Stoick’s grandfather had built himself. What a sight it might have been now to the old codger, to see the slab of obsidian hauled in from a local volcano, or to behold the creature that slept on it.

The house was mostly warmed with dubious space-heaters (and the occasional dragon), so Hiccup didn’t feel bad lifting the huge skylight window and letting in the cool late-spring air. His bed had been made with fresh sheets—probably Gobber’s doing, but no one would mention it—but Hiccup looked between the bed and the cherry-red glow of plasma-warmed stone at its foot and knew which looked more inviting.

 _Come_? Toothless quarked, lifting his wing in case Hiccup had a hard time translating. It had Hiccup much longer than he liked to admit to realize that dragons had a real, verbal language, and not just a series of body language and pitched sounds, like a dog or other animal might have. Toothless croaked the same sound every time that he meant “come”—and that alone, the newness and flush of _understanding_ some great new concept, was sometimes enough to get Hiccup to do what he was told out of sheer glee.

Tonight, Hiccup hesitated, looking at the bed, but Toothless rolled his eyes in a gesture every dragon seemed to easily pick up from humans.

 _There sleep no_ , Toothless chirped very distinctly, looking at the bed. It took Hiccup a moment to parse out if that was an order or a promise.

  _There sleep Hiccup_ , Toothless chattered, going slower, rephrasing like he sometimes did, when it was important for Hiccup to understand him. He made a ”connecting” noise, a trill that worked like a conjunction or an indicator of cause and effect. Hiccup took a moment to work out what Toothless was trying to say.

“ _If_ ,” Hiccup finally realized. “Ah, okay, if I sleep there in the bed….. then?”

The conjunction again. _Then Toothless not sleep._ The dragon shrugged like it was no scale off his nose, but his shoulders were hunched and his tail flicked tensely.

“Well then, put out part of that,” Hiccup suggested, raising an eyebrow on the glowing stone that was far too hot for a human.

Toothless dropped his chin on it, snuffing out the worst of the heat. He stared smugly up at Hiccup, who was shimmying out of his blue jeans and into flannel pajamas, hopping a little and tossing his prosthetic somewhere in the corner of the room. He would probably regret not putting it away, tomorrow.

“Alright, alright,” Hiccup conceded teasingly. He cleared his throat, trying to croak with a convincing accent. _Hiccup sleep,_ a cough as he regulated his accent _, will sleep together-with Toothless_.

The huffing croak Toothless made was a dragonish laugh.

“What?” Hiccup demanded.

 _Tooth-less_ , the dragon pronounced slowly. _Hiccup say_ , and then made a sound suspiciously similar to the exact one Hiccup had just coughed to approximate his partner’s name for himself. It, spoken as a dragon would, sounded very much not like what he had _meant_ to say.

Hiccup groaned, wrestling his sock off and throwing it in the same direction as the prosthetic. “Well, what did I say, then?”

Toothless widened his mouth in a syrupy yawn, deploying his teeth in demonstration.

“Teeth?” Hiccup squawked. “I said I’d sleep with teeth?”

Toothless wiggled his head and tail in amusement.

"Oh, I’ll show you teeth,” Hiccup growled, awkwardly kneeling low in front of Toothless’ snout and baring his canines in something far too close to a smile to be convincingly threatening. He took hold of Toothless’ massive jaws, dragging the dragon’s head around and growling nonsense until Toothless got the hang of the movements, turned his head sharply, and flipped Hiccup neatly off-balance and straight into his front paws. While Hiccup howled in mock-protest, Toothless simply dropped his jaw across Hiccup’s abdomen and growled low to make it vibrate.

“You know that tickles!” Hiccup yelled in real distress. Toothless continued to hum until Hiccup was laugh-sobbing for breath and had managed to work a hand under Toothless’ jaw far enough to hit the spot that would make Toothless go limp.

That trapped Hiccup even further, but at least Toothless wasn’t humming anymore. Hiccup could definitely sleep across Toothless’ paws like this—and had at points—if he could get the knuckle out of his lower back.

 Toothless sneezed into his T-shirt and Hiccup groaned, finally wriggling around into a position that might actually be conducive for them to sleep in. Toothless ended up curled nose-to-tail, with Hiccup in the hollow of his body, head down on the meat of Toothless’ shoulder, the dragon’s wings draped half-over him like a breathing, fluttering blanket.

 Hiccup let out a soul-deep sigh, relaxing into his partner and feeling Toothless breathe comfortably beneath and around him. He smelled of burnt ozone and salted iron. Hiccup buried his face into the soft, leathery skin at the base of Toothless’ neck and shoulder.

“Think we can do it?” Hiccup asked nebulously. He wasn’t sure, exactly, what he meant by the question—joining the PPDC, fighting monsters, saving the world, or even just _getting_ to Alaska unscathed and unseen, which could take them two weeks by flight.

It didn’t matter, really, what he meant, because his partner wasn’t having it. Toothless stared at Hiccup with the most unimpressed look he could manage while half-asleep.

 _We are We_ , Toothless growled with finality.

“You’re right, as always,” Hiccup agreed, smiling as he put his face back down to Toothless’ hot skin and blew a raspberry the dragon would not feel. “We are _We_.”

He growled the last word like a dragon would, rather than speaking it, because it didn’t translate well into Icelandic. _We_ was a sound like popping logs in a bonfire and the snap of air against an unfurled wing.

Hiccup had first heard the work spoken by a dragon who _wasn’t_ Toothless quite on accident. He was in Gobber’s garage, measuring a new saddle for Stormfly, who chattered faster and higher than a Nightfury. Hiccup didn’t catch all the words, but the dragon seemed to be talking about plans that she and Astrid had for a new aerial trick.

 _Astrid think Stormfly not able to do trick,_ the dragon whistled. _But born in air. We Nadder. We Stormfly._

Hiccup stopped his measuring, confused. _We?_ he clicked. Stormfly was obviously only talking about herself, not her-and-Astrid.

 _We_ , Stormfly agreed. _We. Stormfly_ , she said slower, pronouncing her own name for herself. _We Stormfly, you Hiccup._ The sound for Hiccup was exactly that—a choked hiccup. Hiccup understood that word, and all the individual ones that Stormfly was stringing together, but they didn’t make any sense. At this point, Hiccup had learned dragons often referred to themselves in third person, using their own name. Toothless did all the time. However, for a being so aware of his own intelligence—and usually smug about it—Toothless had never made a sound for himself other than his own name. There was no ”I”. There was only “Toothless” and “We”, meaning the collective, Toothless and Hiccup together.

Except—what if it wasn’t a collective?

“Stormfly,” Hiccup asked, voice tight with implication. He was grateful that she was one of the few other dragons on Berk who had picked up Icelandic so quickly. “What do you call you and Astrid? Together? If two do a trick—tell me, who does the trick?”

Stormfly cocked her head in amusement at Hiccup’s language games, but she loved to play with him. _Obviously we do trick. Astrid and Stormfly do trick. Why Hiccup want to know what we do as trick want to steal trick cannot steal trick? Stormfly too fast. Cannot steal trick._

This time, the word “we” was a low groan. It was not the same word from before: _we_ and _We_ were completely different.

“You and Astrid— _we_ ,” Hiccup checked. “You Stormfly _—We._ Yourself. That’s how you refer to self.”

 Stormfly bobbed her head in a parody of a nod, purring her encouragement of the clever human. _Yes yes yes. We Stormfly. Heart of Stormfly. Wings of Stormfly. Nose and tail of Stormfly._

All that was important to the soul of a dragon was put in the word that they used to refer to themselves.

Toothless, however, never spoke like that.

Hiccup went straight to his dragon when he was done with Stormfly’s saddle. Toothless was teaching Astrid to ride him properly so that she could take control of the foot pedals. It was an emergency precaution they had been hesitant to implement, but had finally agreed it was _safest_ to try, even if it was with Astrid only. Toothless needed someone else who could operate his tail in an emergency.

When Hiccup reached the heath they had been practicing on, he looked up at the pair gliding low above the trees, feeling a surge within him like a strong wind in his blood. He had not, in his life, been forced to watch for long as Toothless flew without him, and the idea of that, the Otherness, hit him in the gut. It was like watching himself on home video, remembering he had taken this step or that one but not understanding until he saw it what he actually _looked_ like.

Toothless was above him and he should not be. They should be together. The feeling was so deeply visceral that it took Hiccup longer than it should have to work out its significance beyond the resonance in his chest.

 _We_ , Toothless would say, referring never to himself alone but to him and Hiccup as a unit. He was _right._ They weren’t the same when they were not together. They weren’t whole.

 _We are We_ , Toothless repeated again, nosing Hiccup out of his reverie and back into his old room in his father’s home. _Understand_. An order, not a query.

“I understand. Who or what could possibly stand in the way of our fearsome might?” Hiccup joked gently, flexing his bicep for emphasis.

Toothless huffed unamusement, but his eyes sparkled. _No one_ , he answered definitively _._ He closed his eyes, and finally, Hiccup did the same, warm against his other half, the one who made him confident and strong. His doubts sometimes—often—still rested in the limitations he perceived in himself. However, he could _never_ doubt Toothless. Toothless was absolute. _We_ was absolute. They would make it, somehow.


	4. The Business of Having an Adventure

The entire Dragon Academy had risen at sunrise to get on with the business of having an adventure. All of the riders that had made up the original Academy stood with their dragons in the wide-open center of town, in front of the bleakly modern corrugated steel building that stood as rec center, house of various worship, municipal center of the independent Icelandic municipality that Berk styled itself as, and Town Hall.

It was a ceremony of warriors, because Berk would never forget her Viking past, and the leaders of the town stood proudly before their children and defenders.

Hiccup pulled his leather flying jacket tighter around himself, squinting into the sunrise as Stoick stood on the slow steps of the weather-beaten hall and spoke loudly in Old Icelandic, repeating a warrior blessing Hiccup had never thought his island would ever need to use, especially not on him. Berk had its share of battles and attacks, but never in its memory had so many prepared to go flying into war.

He watched his other riders, arrayed in a line before Stoick and the town. Snotlout was standing proudly, chest out, drinking in every word spoken by the Chief and every approving glance from his father. Fishlegs was mumbling the words of the ancient text along with Stoick, clearly delighted with their historical implication. Ruff and Tuff actually stood mostly quietly, listening keenly as quite a lot of the warrior’s blessing alluded to fire and death and generally violent carrying on. Astrid had her nose in a thermos of black tea, clearly concentrating on something else, very likely the same thing that Hiccup should be working on: logistics.         

Dragons, as a natural rule, were powerful flyers and great companions for long-distance travel. The issue, however, was that some things were simply too distant, namely, the passage from mainland Iceland to Greenland. There was nowhere good to land for even a short rest, and it was beyond even Hookfang or Toothless’ staying power to go that far over open ocean.

From Iceland, then, they’d go by boat. Johann, though not a native of Berk, was one of the very few trusted with the secrets of—and the supply deliveries for—the island. He had sworn to the ghost of his fathers that he wouldn’t tell a soul that he was currently to be carrying the dragon riders in his little cargo vessel, but the reality of getting the dragons on the boats was daunting. Maritime law was, for the most part, beyond Hiccup, but Johann definitely couldn’t just float out in the harbor waiting for the dragons to arrive. The coast guard would find it suspicious, and rightfully so. But Johann’s trip to Greenland was disguised as a legitimate business venture, and was a time sensitive one. He didn’t have time to sail to Berk and still get to Greenland on time. The riders would instead fly into as deserted an area in Iceland as possible, radio Johann’s boat to meet them, and hope for the best.

Stoick must have ended his speech at that point, because a hoarse roar of approval rent the morning air as only former Vikings could. Toothless preened, just a little, at the patting and attention that he was receiving in the wake of the Chief’s words. Gobber hugged both Hiccup and Toothless, one in each arm, sniffing mightily but “definitely _no’ cryin’_ ,” before shoving his favorite knife into Hiccup’s hand.

 “A weapon bonny enough to kill a Kaiju with,” Gobber promised, looking at Hiccup steadily. “Just keep it with you. And you, mister,” Gobber turned to Toothless, “Your gift is on the saddle.”

Toothless twisted his neck comically to eye the flight straps on his saddle. The ones Hiccup had made had been tooled through with silver-stitched runes. Toothless had never bothered learning to read Icelandic, much less runes, and quarked a question at him.

"Protection,” Gobber told him “For ye both.”

Hiccup grinned at Gobber. “Thank you. We both do.” Toothless burbled an agreement.

“Yeah, well, ye best bring the knife back, it’s only a loan. I’m givin’ it tae you tae get it named, ye see; can’t name a blade without a kill.”

“Yeah, so far that one’s only up for Rabbit-slayer,” Snotlout butted in, sniggering. “You wanna se a real blade?” He patted the sword at his hip. “Da’s letting me bring the family Machete.”

Hiccup didn’t know how to respond to that, really.

Astrid wandered over as well, shoving her empty thermos into one of Stormfly’s saddle bags. Thank Thor—she wasn’t worth talking to in the mornings without her tea.

“Saddle up, boys, and let’s go save the world,” she ordered. “Gotta get to Höfn by dark.”

“Ye think yer gonna scuttle away without me seein’ ye off?”

Stoick loomed over the little group suddenly, arms crossed across his barrel chest. The man wore bright knitted sweaters and pageboy caps like a uniform, but one look at his impressive, bearded visage scattered everyone anyway, including Gobber.

Which probably pleased Stoick quite a bit, Hiccup thought fondly. However, related or not, Hiccup was always just a tad bit wary with Stoick the Vast, undisputed ruler and Municipal Head of the Berk archipelago, staring down at him with his full attention.

“Wouldn’t dream of taking off without saying goodbye, Dad,” Hiccup promised.

Stoick snorted, but swiftly hauled Hiccup into a crushing hug.

 “Oof,” Hiccup groaned. “Yeah. Um. You too.”

Stoick didn’t let him go, instead rumbling next to his ear. “Listen, son. I know I don’t say it enough to you, especially now that you’re grown—“

“Oh no,” interrupted Hiccup, wiggling a bit to try to get his feet on the ground. “Dad, it’s okay. I know, and I’m gonna be back—“

“No. This is important. Ye must know it, Hiccup. I love you, and I’m proud of you.

Hiccup had thought he didn’t need to hear it, but as soon as Stoick spoke the words, the fight went out of him, and he ended up hugging his father back.

“We’ll be back before you know it. Bring all sorts of glory to Berk. I’ll be a huge pain in your butt—think of all the press. Heroes of the war _and_ proof that dragons are real? You might be forced to make a Facebook, old man, to deal with the press and the fans.”

“Fat chance,” Stoick sighed with a grin in his voice, finally letting Hiccup go.

He turned to Toothless next, which neither man nor dragon expected. Not everyone on the island had been able to wrap their minds, quite, around the idea that not only were dragons intelligent, they were self-aware and way more than just amiable pets. Stoick had been trying, at Hiccup’s insistence, to speak to Toothless more, but as with many of the incredible changes on Berk, it had been slow going.

“I’m proud of you as well, young dragon,” Stoick said gravely. Hiccup watched Toothless’ expression turn serious to match the Chief’s, going against draconic instinct and looking Stoick straight in the eye as one never did to an alpha. Hiccup’s heart stuttered in pride as well, looking at his partner and father together.

Stoick moved closer, putting his hand on the side of Toothless’ face. Hiccup barely heard the murmured words.

“That’s my son you’ve got there,” Stoick said, voice rough. “My _son_.”

Hiccup watched Toothless’ eyes close, and he turned his head trustingly into Stoick’s palm.

“And you are his heart,” Stoick went on, “So I expect you to care for yourself, as well.”

Hiccup could not stop the soft smile on his face as Toothless’ eyes flipped open in surprise at the plain kindness. Stoick was grinning at the dragon.

 _Thank you_ , Toothless purred, even knowing that Stoick would not understand, quite.

“Let’s go, bud,” Hiccup said, mounting up and settling on Toothless’ back. He felt aches in his thighs and spine stretch and gentle, as if he had been away for his natural position for too long. Beneath him, there was a single hard shiver of Toothless’ shoulders as he, too, adjusted to the welcome weight.

“Mount up!” Astrid yelled, seeing Hiccup. Various degrees of scrambling onto dragons ensued, but once everyone was astride, Hiccup couldn’t help but be impressed by his little band.

Hiccup managed their training, and he knew the strengths and weaknesses of every rider. He saw how readily Astrid galvanized and encouraged the team, the creative destruction that Ruffnut excelled at, and the keen defensive brain Tuffnut could present, if motivated. He knew the bravado in Snotlout’s shoulders turned into incredible strength in battle, and Fishlegs’ analytical mind was well suited to strategy.

The dragons, too, were an amazing team, and Hiccup was beginning, with Toothless’ help, to understand the dynamics between all of them. Including Stormfly’s precision, Meatlug’s cheerful helpfulness, Barf and Belch’s caretaking attitude, and Hookfang’s stubbornness, they were—

Toothless broke in, hiccupping a sound like he made when watching a stunning sunset or seeing a huge tuna. _Amazing_.

 _Yes_. Hiccup agreed.

“We’ll call when we can get signal on the radio,” Hiccup promised Stoick loudly, trying to reassure all the concerned parents and loved ones clustered around the team.

“Let’s fly!” roared Ruffnut, surprising no one except Barf and Belch, and just that fast, they all took to the sky.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stoick totally wears pageboy caps and a lot of sweaters in truly garish colors and patterns. FIGHT ME.
> 
> (Gobber made most of the sweaters and Valka once told him she liked his hat so he bought three more)


	5. Port Authority

Chapter Four

It took the better part of the day to gain the Icelandic coast, with almost no opportunity for rest. The dragons skidded along on coasting thermals whenever possible, and hunted fish as they went. The riders ate cold jerky and drank thermoses of tea and huddled close to their companions’ warm skin. They took turns falling behind in the formation and relieving themselves in the water, but even as prepared as every member of the Academy was from their training, the day was long and grim. They weren’t on a training jaunt any longer; they were approaching inhabited waters, on the way to fight the largest and most terrifying monsters anyone on earth had ever seen. Even Ruff and Tuff kept the arguing to a dull roar, and no one shouted across the sky at each other or played flying games unless Hiccup or whoever was running point needed to warn them to change course due to dead air or heavy gusts.

Still, for all the oppressive atmosphere, Hiccup was _happy_. He could feel Toothless humming under his thighs and delighted in the constant push and pull between them. Every current of air they jumped together was a tense and a flex of both their bodies. When Toothless sprang forward to speed ahead, Hiccup stood in his stirrups like a jockey, feeling every bunch of Toothless’ powerful shoulders and ducking under the swift upward touch of his wings.

Some flights, perhaps, were longer and more somber than others, but they were _together_.

Toothless chirred a laugh into the wind, for the fun of it. _We_ , the dragon sang, and Hiccup smiled, huffing an affirmative noise and leaning forward to run knuckles under his partner’s sensitive jaw.

“Oi, just because you think you’re smart for learning another language doesn’t mean you get to have inside jokes,” Snotlout barked, riding up close to Toothless’ side.

 _Yes you can_ , offered Hookfang, true to form.

[“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Fishlegs, on Hiccup and Toothless’ other side, butted in in English. [“Inside jokes? _Snotlout_ , why would we have those?”

“Hey, you too! I can’t speak English either!” Snotlout howled. “I heard my name and I demand to know what you just said.”

[“You’re. A. Huge. Idiot,” Ruffnut said, very slowly and carefully, also in English.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Snotlout yelled. “That was mean!”

 “See?” Ruffnut said to Tuffnut. “He does _so_ understand English.”

[“How do you expect to get by in Alaska without English?” Astrid asked practically, falling into formation at Toothless’ side. [“I doubt any of them speak Icelandic.”

“Ugh!” Snotlout yelled, out of the loop again.

“I’m going to have to keep an eye out for him at the ‘Dome, aren’t I?” Hiccup groaned.

“Unless he can learn English on the trip. It’s, what, two weeks? That’s enough time to learn survival language skills, right?” Fishlegs offered.

“Brilliant, you’re hired to tutor him!” Astrid decided for everyone. “Thanks, Fishlegs!”

Hiccup could hear Hookfang snickering.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the flight passed more or less quietly, and by bleary sundown, the Icelandic coast was in sight.

 “Alright, our rendezvous point is coming up,” Hiccup warned them all. “Johann said he would be swinging through an hour after sunset; I’ll radio him and let him know—“

 “Don’t think you need to use the radio,” Tuffnut said, before cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting. “ _Hey Johann!”_

“What is it about ‘stealth’ that no one here understands?” Astrid snapped, and Stormfly bumped at Barf-and-Belch with her tail in agreement.

Tuffnut wasn’t wrong, though. There was Johann below them, braced on the deck of either the largest yacht or the tiniest freighter Hiccup had ever seen. The trader was frantically waving down the riders into deserted cove, and they dove one by one to the rocky beach.

“Master Hiccup!” Johann said expansively as they landed on the damp strand. He yelped as he was grabbed from the deck of his ship by Stormfly and deposited on the beach with the riders.

“You’re, ah, early,” Hiccup bgean, taking in how harried the man appeared. It may have had something to do with the impromptu dragon flight, but even when he was on solid ground, he looked exceptionally worried.

“We have had a change in plans,” Johann sniffed, spreading his arms wide in supplication. “I had intended to receive my shipment in Höfn this morning, and went ahead and put in my paperwork with the Danish coastguard in Greenland—but my manifests do not match up! I may have indicated that I was a tourist vessel to take advantage of tariff reductions in Iceland…but now the Port Authority wants proof of my passengers!”

“Wait,” Hiccup broke in before Johann could get on a roll “You used us to get a tax break?”

The man had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well. Rather. And now they are demanding that I produce the passengers. I came this way to warn you.”

Astrid made a noise of disgust. “But how are we supposed to do that? We aren’t ready to introduce the dragons; we can’t bring them into port.”

“No,” Johann agreed. “You will need to load the dragons here. I will sale and meet you at Höfn tomorrow.”

“Wait. Höfn is at least fifteen miles away,” Fishlegs pointed out. It made some sense that he knew the map of their route so well—Fishlegs made a point of memorizing almost any map he could get his hands on.

“How would we even get there?” scoffed Snotlout. “Walk?”

Johann nodded apologetically. Snotlout’s jaw dropped. “There is _no way_ —“ he began.

“We aren’t leaving our dragon!” Tuffnut whined.

Astrid raised one eloquent eyebrow. “And why would we? I don’t see any reason to walk several hours just for you to profit. You agreed to ferry us to Greenland in the first place because you owe Stoick for that load of salted cod you lost.”

The apologetic look deepened. “I’m afraid…” Johann stopped for a long moment, staring apprehensively at a fidgeting Stormfly, who was trying to translate the Icelandic being shot angrily back and forth, and swiftly getting nervous as she did so. “I’m afraid that it’s our only option at this point. If I don’t comply and we sail away now, I’ll be intercepted and…well, _inspected_.”

All the dragons that were listening—Meatlug was not, too busy licking interesting parts of the beach—began to flutter their wings and shift nervously.

Astrid actually growled before any of the dragons did, but it was a near thing. “What the—“

“Astrid,” Hiccup broke in. He had been practicing not recoiling when she whirled on him and stared, as she was doing now, and almost succeeded. “Ah. Herring,” he faltered.

 “Fine,” she snapped, turning away from a shell-shocked Johann and stalking a few feet down the beach while Hiccup jogged to keep up. As “ _code words to signal that we need to talk alone_ ” went, “herring” was not the most unobtrusive, but it did the trick.

“Listen, Astrid, I don’t like it any more than you do,” Hiccup promised, flexing his fingers a little in the sudden cold that accompanied dismounting his space-heater of a dragon. “And he’s an idiot. And all the other nasty things you’re calling him in your head right now. But this isn’t one of the problems we can threaten into working the way that it should.”

“I don’t know,” said Astrid, just to be contrary. She fingered the haft of the axe strapped across her back for good measure. “Think we can take on the Port Authority in battle?”

“Not funny,” groaned Hiccup, smiling anyway. “I’m going to need you help keeping up troop morale if we do this.”

Astrid sighed, resigned. “We can walk it in about five or six hours.”

“That’s the spirit,” Hiccup said. “We’ll try to find somewhere to bunk for the night in the outskirts and board tomorrow morning.”

Astrid nodded curtly, her business face already on. “I checked the map of Höfn before we left Berk, but I didn’t _bring_ it because I didn’t think we’d be _here_ long. There’s at least one hostel on our way, and it’s about halfway between here and the harbor. More or less. It’s as good as we are going to get.”

“Let’s do it, then,” Hiccup agreed. They were prepared to rough it for most of the journey—they’d practiced, and really, had camped most of their lives, just being from Berk. They did have a bit of emergency cash stored up, though, if they needed somewhere to stay. They’d be fine tonight. Hiccup grinned at Astrid’s approving grunt.

Astrid knew the meaning of picking her battles. Unfortunately, the rest of the riders did not.

“What the fuck,” Snotlout said bluntly. “There is no fucking way.”

Fishlegs was opening his mouth as well, and the twins were chanting “what the fuck, what the fuck,” as some kind of background counterpoint.

Thank Thor for Astrid.

 _"Enough_ ,” she shouted, Stormfly trilling backup. “This isn’t negotiable. Johann screwed up, and he’s going to pay for a hostel—“

Johann blanched, but nodded.

“—but unless you want to start this journey _already_ being discovered, and your dragons end up in a zoo or _shot_ , we’re going to suck it up and _walk._ ”

The whining died down.

As Astrid took the lead and finalized logistics with Johann, the rest said goodbye to their dragons. Stormfly was chirping explanations to Barf-and-Belch, who were the slowest at translating. When they understood, Belch began to spark menacingly.

“Hey, I don’t like it either, pal, but we can’t cause massive destruction unless we get to Alaska first,” Tuffnut soothed both heads.

“Wow. That actually sounded almost reasonable,” Astrid commented.

Ruffnut looked aghast. “What are you _doing_ , man? I can’t believe I’m _related_ to you.”

“It’s okay, girl, it’ll just be a day,” Fishlegs was saying to a crooning Meatlug.

“Dude, are you _crying_?” Snotlout asked, rubbing roughly at his eyes.

“No, are you?” Fishlegs tried to challenge him. Their eyes were both red-rimmed, and even Hookfang was doing a terrible job of looking unaffected.

Hiccup turned to Toothless. “I don’t think any of them have been apart from their dragons for so long…ah, ever.”

Toothless hummed low. _We also, always together_.

Hiccup took a deep breath. “Yeah. Uh. Wow, this is weird.” He closed his eyes only to feel the way the air moved as Toothless pushed his face gently against Hiccup’s neck and shoulder.

 “There’s a lot that can go wrong.” Hiccup continued shakily, his arms coming up around Toothless’ neck, running his knuckles over the back of the dragon’s skull. “Neither of us can fly now, and—“

Toothless eased free so he could meet Hiccup’s eyes. _Toothless? Toothless safe. Have scales and claws and teeth. Toothless safe,_ the dragon assured his rider. Then he dipped his head a little, a low, barely perceptible growl sliding free. _Hiccup be **careful**_ , he ordered, using the imperative. _Hiccup have no claws, Hiccup reckless and stupid and brave and mine!_ Toothless choked off the sounds with a snap of his teeth, as if just realizing how upset he was, how hard his flanks were shaking. In an instant, Hiccup’s arms were wrapped around him again.

 _We be careful_ , Hiccup muttered. _No danger._

Toothless snorted. _Heard that many times_. _Every time you lie_.

Hiccup threw his head back and laughed. It wasn’t particularly funny, but he was dangerously and unexpectedly close to crying.

* * *

The group of dragon-less riders found a hostel about three hours into their haphazard trek down what ended up being the main highway. The place was as basic as was to be expected, but the bunks were clean, and there was a pub in the basement. Ruff, Tuff, and Snotlout seemed excited about beer not brewed at home by Mulch and Bucket.

“You can have _one_ ,” Hiccup cautioned them. “We move out early tomorrow, so you need to be awake and alert. And I don’t want to hear even a _word_ about dragons to anyone.”

“Calm _down_ , mother,” Snotlout groused. “It takes more than a litre to make me _tipsy_.”

 “One _what?_ ” Tuff wanted to know. “One litre? One hour? One ring to rule them all?”

“One _drink_ ,” Hiccup clarified, leaning towards where they stood in the door of the bunk room. It was a room of eight, but the hostel was sleepy and didn’t have any other guests assigned there. The riders had it to themselves. “And no, ‘one litre’ of Brennivin—or any other hard liquor, I mean it!—is not ‘a drink’. Snotlout, I’m holding you responsible for these two.”

“Wait, what--?”

But the twins had each grabbed a sleeve of his vest and dragged him off.

“Now _you’r_ e liable for our damages,” Ruff said gleefully.

 Astrid eyed them as they disappeared down the narrow steps from the bunk room. “Neatly done. That’s all three of them mostly occupied.”

“I have my moments. What about Fishlegs, though?” Hiccup asked, looking at the young man curled despondently in the bottom bunk of the far bed. He wasn’t listening to them, instead flipping through pictures of Meatlug on this tablet. He was the only one of them who had brought a mobile of any sort—most on Berk didn’t even have one, because Wi-Fi was often spotty and only available in Town Hall.

“Please,” Astrid snorted. “Watch this.” She let out a shrill whistle usually only reserved for dragon-calls, and Fishlegs’ head snapped up in a split second of terror.

“There’s Wi-Fi here,” Astrid hold him. “You can download all the episodes of _Orange Marmalade_ that we haven’t been able to get over the bandwidth limit in town hall yet.”

And that distracted Fishlegs enough to temporarily stop him pining for his friend. As he ran down to the front desk to see about the Wi-Fi password, Hiccup bumped Astrid’s fist.

“Not bad,” he congratulated her. “Now who’s left?”

“Me,” Astrid laughed. “And I’m going to have a shower. Who knows when we’ll have hot water again?”               

“Point,” conceded Hiccup as he watched her disappear with her shower kit and a towel she had knicked from the hostel towel rentals. That just left him to find some way to occupy himself. He really wanted to just go to bed, but someone had to go get the twins and Snotlout in an hour or so.

Instead, he followed Fishlegs down the stairs to see if he could find some food. His options seemed to be the pub and nothing else—they were surrounded by tundra, highway, and a Mack truck weigh station. Not wanting to even get _near_ the argument that a shot _in_ a beer was still only one drink, he thanked the bartender and wrapped his hot sandwich in a paper serviette to take outside.

It was cold, even for the time of year in Iceland, but the sky was sharp and clear, splashed over with stars that were only slightly dimmed by human light.

The dragons were fine, of course, Hiccup kept reminding himself. Johann wasn’t always the brightest of bulbs, but he _was_ capable, and decent enough at keeping secrets to boot. All that he had to do was to secure a boat full of dragons for a night. Toothless would keep the others in check.

However, the staunchness of his self-assurances was undermined by two facts. First, the dragons, and Toothless in particular, seemed able to attract trouble even without overtly trying. Second…Hiccup missed Toothless. His head hurt from trying to catch a glimpse of his partner out of the corner of his eye. Normally, when Hiccup turned his gaze, Toothless would be _there,_ keeping an eye on him, too. Hiccup, even in the last few hours, had caught himself looking around for nothing at all.

“Hey.”

Hiccup startled enough that he almost fumbled the rest of the food he had been picking at.

 “Left side, really?” he demanded resignedly. Astrid grinned back at him, patting his shoulder.

Apparently, free diving off dragon-back had some serious air-pressure concerns. Hiccup had tinnitus in his left ear—the mainland doctor who had looked him over had jokingly asked if he skydived often. Thankfully, he hadn’t noticed when Hiccup looked uncomfortable and started stammering.

“Ready for bed?” Astrid asked. “Even the twins are getting tired. Besides, the sooner we head out tomorrow, the sooner I can punch Johann for delaying us this much.”

“Don’t cause too much damage, Astrid,” Hiccup said, standing and stretching his back a little “He still needs to steer the boat.”

“I’m sure one of us could figure it out,” Astrid sniffed.

Hiccup offered her a small smile, and she stood and socked his arm, hard, but not nearly has hard as she could have. “They miss us as much as we miss them,” Astrid promised him.

Hiccup laughed a little. “Except maybe Hookfang.”

Astrid rolled her eyes. “Like dragon, like rider.”

They climbed the narrow stairs back to the bunk-room, but when they walked in, the lights were still on and there was a pile of bed-linen in the middle of the floor. At first, Hiccup thought that someone had gone through their things and robbed them. The other riders were nowhere to be found. Just then, however, Snotlout stuck his head out from a particularly lumpy section of the blankets on the floor.

“Turn off the light,” he complained, hurling a pillow at Hiccup. There were various moanings and groanings from the other parts of the floor-nest.

“Should I ask?” Hiccup hedged. He did what he was asked, though, too tired to argue, and the room was darkened, to audible sighs of relief.

“We always sleep in a pile with our dragons at Dragon’s Edge,” Fishlegs explained plaintively, voice muffled as he was completely ensconced in bed linen. “This isn’t so different.”

“I don’t even know if Fishlegs _can_ sleep alone,” Snotlout continued, as if he wasn’t also a willing participant in whatever-this-was.

“And you all are okay with this?” Astrid checked, because it was just a _little_ too on the wrong side of weird to take at face value.

“This isn’t much different from home—I mean, Ruffnut is just as hard and scaly as Barf and Belch—ack!”

Tuffnut made a squawk and then a gurgling noise. The sheets twitched violently for several moments before all was silent.    

“Yeah, what could go wrong?” asked Hiccup.

He and Astrid undressed in the dark, using the light of Fishlegs’ tablet to make sure they didn’t break anything or step on anyone. Astrid threw on a sweatshirt and managed to shimmy off her bra with it still on. Hiccup pulled on his track bottoms and gratefully unstrapped his leg. They flopped haphazardly onto the rest of the pile, dragging the thin blankets off their bunks with them.

Hiccup only realized just how much tension he had been carrying around in his shoulders when it eased, however slightly. It was being around the breathing, warm, fidgeting mess that was his team. He was missing half of it, and half of himself, but knowing all five of his human companions were safe and sleeping gentled some twisted instinct snarled in his chest.

Astrid ended up a leg thrown over his; Ruffnut’s hair was in his face and Snotlout’s knee was in his back. He could hear Fishlegs snoring already and pretended not to notice when Tuffnut tugged one of the sheets up to cover him just a bit more.

Sleeping with the dragons was time to reassure each other that they were safe and breathing and _together._ For now, this strange sleeping nest was about the same things. As the leader of their little band, concerned for everyone under his influence, Hiccup couldn’t think of a more perfect comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it really bugs me that they spend so much time in the air and there is really no good solution to having to pee. like, especially if you don't have a penis.
> 
> also i clearly know nothing about Icelandic or Danish maritime law


	6. Five Dragons on a Boat; What Could Go Wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Hookfang:   
> For a long time I assumed Hookfang was a female dragon, and got very confused during the show where they referred to them as "he". 
> 
> So I threw up my hands and said "fuck it, Hookfang doesn't have a gender" and so they don't. Non-binary dragons for everyone (come on, why would dragons be so rigidly into the human gender-binary anyway? Does Dragonese have pronouns even, or is that a translation bias that Hiccup brings into his interpretation of the language?). 
> 
> Yes, the humans tend to mis-gender them, because Hookfang doesn't understand Icelandic enough to correct anyone and honestly, probably wouldn't care anyway. Hiccup is starting to understand that Hookfang doesn't consider themself the same gender as Toothless or Barf-And-Belch but in Icelandic or English he reverts to male pronouns.

Chapter Six

_I will fry all of them_ , Toothless told Meatlug plaintively. He was surveying the damage that five large dragons were able to, even unintentionally, wreak upon the inside of a cargo boat.

At some point in the night, Johann had given up—he put in earplugs and went to his bunk, presumably to sleep, after warning Toothless that if the boat sank, they’d never get to Greenland. Toothless _knew_ that. The other dragons _knew_ that. They just weren’t made for being in enclosed spaces—especially away from their riders.

The first few hours had gone relatively well. The others, and admittedly even Toothless, were thoroughly distracted by all that was _new_. New sights, new smells, new quarters… Johann had done his duty to dragons and riders and had made sure the cargo deck was insulated and comfortable for the two- (now three-) day journey. What he hadn’t realized, however, was just how _flammable_ things could be under the right circumstances. Like any circumstances involving restless dragons.

Toothless hoped the money Johann saved in this venture would be worth it.

The dragons certainly weren’t _trying_ to destroy anything. However, Stormfly _did_ spark when she was annoyed or excited, Barf couldn’t often control his gas production when he was nervous, and Hookfang seemed to be operating on a level no one else could comprehend and flamed up accordingly. In the end, the hammocks Johann had hung as a courtesy to the riders were completely gone, and so was half the straw bedding for the dragons. It didn’t matter that neither of those, in all likelihood, would have been used. What mattered was that even after nosing open the portholes and letting everything air out, the entire below decks smelled like smoke, all the paint on the steel walls had been gouged up, and the dragons were lying, exhausted, in a pile, without a care in the world.

Meatlug was Toothless’ only ally at the moment—she was too busy missing Fishlegs to be too much trouble, and had done her daily rock-vomit overboard earlier and therefore wasn’t in much of a position to set anything on fire.

And yes, Toothless was sure he was going to have to cull all of them, for the good of the flock…but maybe he’d give them a little longer to live. They were kind of precious when sleeping.

Unsurprisingly to any who knew them, Hookfang was one of the most agitated once the riders had left. Toothless had to growl them down _twice_ to stop them from trying to fight the bulkhead—not that Hookfang _wanted_ to fight the bulkhead. They had just wanted to fight _something_ without admitting how much it was that they really felt lost without Snotlout to pick on. They and Stormfly had finally settled down to a less-than-friendly tail-wrestling match that had only erupted into flames once—and that had been fair because Stormfly had deployed her spikes first. She wasn’t any better without Astrid at her side, her natural cunning and cleverness developing into bullying if she was too tired to control herself.

Letting Hookfang and Stormfly snipe at each other for the time being, Toothless had sent Meatlug to mope in Barf and Belch’s general vicinity. The Zippleback was the best caretaker of the group, even if he was a little bumbling. He was very good at soothing the frequent headaches that his riders had or caused, and in his scramble to turn some of his energy to trying to cheer up Meatlug, even the Barf-head was distracted enough to get his gas-drooling under control.

And so, as the night deepened, the natural exhaustion of a full-day’s flight caught up to every one of them, and slowly Toothless’ flock dropped off to sleep. Meatlug was the last to succumb, and Toothless nosed her toward the warm, scaly pile. They all twitched gently in dreams. Toothless saw Hookfang’s paw stretched to pull closer a human who was not there, and ended up pawing happily at Belch’s head. Stormfly was curled tightly in a sharp ball, but Barf and Belch’s tail twitched lazily across her back-spines in a more-or-less soothing pattern.

Yawning mightily and blowing a lazy plume of steam, Meatlug waved her clubbed tail at Toothless as she snuggle deeper into the pile.

_Soon_ , Toothless promised. He sat at alert until she settled again, keeping vigilant watch over his entire flock for long moments.

He wasn’t ready to join them just yet. After assuring himself the dragons were safe and quiet, Toothless slipped above decks and into the night.

The sky was brighter than on the Nest Island where Hiccup and the others made their village, and the stars were harder to see. Toothless craned his neck for long moments to try to pick out the constellations of battles and dragons and heroic tales that Hiccup had spent so long trying to teach him. Humans were so strange and wondrous. They, like dragons, navigated by the stars—but as an afterthought. Their first love of the night sky was for its stories.

Tonight, Toothless could not find any of the star-pictures he knew, and gave up quickly. It was just a reminder of what he was missing.

Toothless’ scales felt, by turns, both too loose and too tight. He missed the clever fingers brushing across them, the nothing-weight of a body careening into his without care, trusting Toothless to catch or simply hold him up.

Toothless always felt the need to keep an eye on his reckless partner, and felt settled only when he could scent or sight or feel Hiccup near him—proximity didn’t mean that Hiccup was out of trouble; only that Toothless was close enough to follow him into it. However, there was no burden in this vigilance, Toothless felt. The responsibility he felt for his small dragon flock, and the humans that rode them—that was a responsibility that he treasured but was heavy and effortful at times. Hiccup was no weight at all, not on his back and not in his life. Hiccup was simply part of himself.

To miss him now was worse than missing parts of his injured tail.

They had to be strong for one another, however, and for their flock. Hiccup would return to him and they would be whole once again.

Toothless let out a soft sigh, laying in the blackness of the darkened desk and watching the stars turn. He thought that being away from the others for a moment to _think_ and to _breathe_ would calm him—but if he was focused on the others, the things he could control, he would not be more than slightly worried about the things that he could not.

He snuffled discontentedly, sighing once more for emphasis before levering to his paws and slipping back below-decks.

The dragon-pile was more-or-less how he left it. Dragons, by nature, were stationary sleepers. When away from their home flocks, they often needed to sleep on narrow ledges or branches in a pinch, and making too much noise when unconscious somewhere that you were not safe could lead to more creatures than you wanted aware of your presence.

Still, dragons also knew that their nest meant “safety”, and even here, hundreds of miles away from their usual beds the flock knew its nestmates and rolled and coiled into itself as it slept.

Toothless, sly and tired, nosed his way into the very center of the pile, his snout under the flare of Hookfang’s tail, his right wing slightly unfurled to cover one of Barf and Belch’s, his back haunch being taken as a headrest by Stormfly. His left side, under his wing and next to his heart, was cold, but the rest was warm and he could sleep anyway, he thought—and did just that.

               

* * *

 

When Toothless woke, however, he knew he had not been asleep long. His body ached still with the strains of the day before…and the fact that Meatlug had ended up sitting on one of his paws. Toothless nipped casually at her and she made a discontented noise. She was awake, too. In fact, the shuffling and shifting of the sleeping pile indicated they were _all_ awake. No one had slept well it seemed, not even Hookfang, who could fall asleep _flying_ on especially warm days.

Something had changed on the boat, something abrupt that had woken them all. The ship wasn’t bobbing about as much, and there were echoes as it knocked gently against something solid.

There were heavy footsteps on the top deck above them, and the muffled din of unfamiliar voices. Toothless crouched low in the position he could hold still in the longest, poised to strike but able to wait. The others took their cues from him immediately, and went still and silent but for some nasally breathing that Barf and Belch couldn’t help.

Those above must have been the Port Authority, a concept Hiccup had explained as guards of another, much larger chief. Toothless knew that there were subtleties to that, but he trusted Hiccup to navigate those as he navigated the equal strangeness of draconic social structure.

_They stalk_ , Toothless growled low in warning, stressing to the others to keep their silence. _They stalk us._

The heavy footsteps circled the deck above, interspersed with low conversation indistinguishable through the layers of steel above them. There was a series of ramps up to the deck hatch—which, if opened, would expose the dragons. Toothless bit back the instinctual growl as the stalking footsteps circled that hatch—and then slowly, as slow as breathing, wandered way.

All was still below-decks for a solid, heavy-winged moment that seemed to stretch into forever. The ship increased its rocking as powerful motors roared to life and then stabilized. Still, nothing moved.

Then smaller, lighter steps, first one pair and then a sudden jumble, skittered over their heads and the hatch was thrown open.

“Meatlug!” Fishlegs yelped, followed by the calls of all the other riders, and the dampened answering roars of ecstatic dragons. Toothless let them rush by him, watching as Meatlug bowled over her human, forcing the others to climb around her. Stormfly streaked out, half-flying, cautious of their proximity to shore but too elated to hide. Hookfang crawled across Meatlug to happily engulf Snotlout’s head. Barf and Belch raced himself to run headlong into the twins, headbutting the both of them with both surprising and rather concerning force.

Toothless did not rush ahead for two reasons. First, he was willing to wait and take care of those he thought of as his flock. Second—

“Toothless,” Hiccup breathed, slipping neatly below-decks, past the roaring mess of happiness.

_We_ , Toothless trilled thickly before Hiccup _flew_ at him. Toothless raised himself on his back paws just in time to catch Hiccup in his forepaws, letting the momentum bowl them over backwards as Toothless snapped his wings out to encircle them both. Hiccup wiggled like a hatchling in the strange embrace, running his knuckles across the soft scales of Toothless’ chest until it started to tickle and Toothless flipped them over to lick Hiccup in both joy and retribution. The resulting sputtering was a victory.

_You should not leave,_ Toothless scolded Hiccup as he tried ineffectively to wipe his face. Hiccup would smell like him for _days_ and it was amusing. _Not good for dragons._

_Not good for Riders also_ , Hiccup agreed. His clever hands palmed across Toothless’ face, seemingly of their own accord, soothing both of them.

“Johann says in an hour or two we will be far enough away from land to let the dragons stretch their wings,” Astrid said, leaning against the hull door. Hiccup had no idea how long she had been there.

Stormfly came chirping at Astrid’s tail, nuzzle-bumping her rider for more affection, which Astrid gave handsomely.

_Stormfly_ , Astrid said happily, one of the few words in dragon-speech she knew.

_Yes yes good Astrid most-beloved_ , Stormfly praised her, and Astrid grinned in understanding.

“I totally got all that,” she said, trying to appear casual but mostly looking quite pleased with herself.

Hiccup finally pushed himself out of the dragon-jumble he and Toothless had become, following the others out on deck. The sun was still only half-risen, but the day appeared to be turning bright and cold-clear.

Two days, good weather, and calm sailing to Greenland. Six youths with Viking blood and the five dragons who loved them were trapped on a boat. What could possibly go wrong?

 

* * *

 

INTERLUDE: HOOKFANG

Toothless was _right_ , but that didn’t make Hookfang _like_ it. Sure, it wasn’t a good thing to immolate on a boat. Sure, it was logical to keep their flame under control, to not fly while they were still close to the shore, and to listen to the little dragon that was, by some quirk of fate, their leader.

But the Riders were here now, and they were far from shore, and Hookfang was entirely _done_ taking orders. They wanted to _fly_ , and their skin was itchy with drying saliva and no flame to soothe their scales.

As soon as Hookfang dropped Snotlout out of their mouth—for Nightmares greeted mates and family with neck bites, but Snotlout was a human and therefore too fragile for any real roughhousing—they chirred and flapped their wings impatiently, ready to get into the air. They were going with or without Snotlout, but it was always better with Snotlout there, where Hookfang could keep an eye on him.

Luckily, Snotlout was of the same mind. “We’re far enough away from land that we can fly, right?” he asked Toothless’ rider, then clambered up Hookfang’s side without waiting for an answer.

No, that wouldn’t do. Hookfang didn’t _like_ that Toothless was, in effect, their alpha, but they did respect it—until they could challenge him otherwise, and right now they didn’t feel like it.

Snotlout really needed to learn to respect his alpha, both Toothless’ rider and Hookfang themself. So Hookfang waited.

Toothless’ rider said something affirmative—Hookfang wasn’t listening well enough to figure out exactly what—but Hookfang didn’t respond to the tug on their horns for another few heartbeats, just to make sure that Snotlout understood the lesson. Snotlout could be very stubborn, sometimes.

Hookfang couldn’t hold out as long as they really wanted to, however. They _needed_ be in the air. So, they judged the perfect moment to surprise Snotlout and took to the air just in time to disorient him. His squawking mixed with Hookfang’s delighted roars as they soared.

“ _Man_ , this is nice!” Snotlout crowed after he stopped screeching.

Hookfang was glad that their rider was in such a good mood. Snotlout was a good human, a strong human, and tried to be unemotional when they parted yesterday, but Hookfang could smell his distress. The lingering anxiety was bleeding away, but only slowly. Hookfang knew they could be impatient, but they wanted Snotlout to be focused on them now, and so took matters in claw.

“Hookfang, what are you—agh!”

 Three unsolicited flying loops and four bursts of flame later (Hookfang meant to do only one loop, but Snotlout had tried to order them—order _them!_ —to stop so Hookfang found it necessary to do a few more), Hookfang was feeling better than they had in quite a while. Hookfang could tell that Snotlout felt the same. Sure, his heart was pounding and the electric acid scent of terror and surprise floated from him, but beneath that, the persistent ache of lonely sadness had finally abated.

Just as Hookfang knew it would. They knew what was best for their rider, their most-beloved.

The sun was still rising to its noon zenith; they had set out from that terrible harbor just as the clear-bright sun was rising. The thick, black, pregnant clouds that had held on from yesterday’s overcast sky still streaked in tattered fingers overhead. They were backlit, however, by the bright yellow-white of a tenacious sun and the block-blue of the sky. It was breathtaking. It was home.

Hookfang knew that it was danger into which they and Snotlout headed. They did not often find value in the loud boxes and screens which the humans—and even some dragons!—watched for entertainment. However, they weren’t unaware of the occasional value of learning what was happening in other parts of the world. Hookfang knew what terrible danger they and their Rider faced.

The whole of Hookfang’s heart was full of fierce excitement at the possibility of a true battle, like theirs with the Red Queen. Few dragons reveled in the flame and aggression as much as Monstrous Nightmares did.

However—and this sometimes annoyed them to no end, when they thought about it too long—their excitement was tempered these days by some illogical fear. They feared for Snotlout’s safety.

And it was _awful_ , because Snotlout was clearly the very strongest of all the dragon-riders. He was even stronger than Stormfly’s rider, although she often bested Snotlout anyway because she was quick and smart as well as _almost_ as strong as him. So Hookfang should not worry for Snotlout, as they would not worry for any other strong member of their flock.

 Except, Snotlout was _theirs_ and that made everything more messy.

_You should just be immune to everything,_  Hookfang snapped crossly, even though they knew Snotlout could not understand much of what they said.

Snotlout _did_ seem to sense their irritation, at least, even if he misinterpreted the cause. Hookfang felt the faint sensation of Snotlout stroking one of their horns.

“I know we shouldn’t’ve left you on the boat, Hooky. If I could get away with setting Johann on fire, I would. Dude, he shouldn’t have done that and Hiccup _definitely_ shouldn’t have let him.”

Hookfang appreciated the comfort but they didn’t _need_ it. They were a Monstrous Nightmare, after all, and one night alone in the hold of a ship was nothing to be distressed about in the light of day. Snotlout was a kind human, but he was still a human. Humans held onto things that hurt instead of letting them go, and had very long memories of pain.

This, Hookfang knew, because of the man who smelled of disappointment and anger and called himself Snotlout’s sire. Hookfang left the nest when his own sire challenged them, much in the way Snotlout’s sire did to him. But even though Snotlout often lived away from his sire’s nest, he had neither left it nor rose to the challenge of his parent.

Hookfang was still not entirely certain why this was. Part of it, they thought, was that Snotlout did not see himself as strong enough to win an outright challenge. Hookfang did their best, then, to guide and train and toughen his most-beloved until he felt as strong a Hookfang knew him to be.

However, even though no physical confrontation had yet occurred, sometimes when Spitelout barked at his offspring, Hookfang smelled _hurt_ and _pain_ on him. Snotlout would carry it with him like a harness for a long time after, and even when he shrugged it away or tried to pass it off to other Riders by yelling or force, eventually it would come back.

Hookfang thought human memories of pain unnecessarily long and cruel. They themselves remembered things that hurt, true—like bites and sick prey and aching muscles and falling—but only in the way that they knew to avoid them later.

Still, Hookfang only resented human nature on Snotlout’s behalf. Hookfang was strong and powerful; they knew it was their job to help protect Snotlout from this, too.

What worked the best for forgetting was startling him. So Hookfang did a few more loops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda feeling like I'm posting this into the void but tbh I'm going to finish it anyway. Sometimes its the best and most important part of my day.


	7. Herding Cats in the Cold

If it was hard for Hiccup to explain to the Riders why they could not fly as they got closer to Greenland, he couldn’t help but sympathize with the difficulty Toothless must be having explaining it to the dragons.

“This blows,” Ruffnut said succinctly. The humans were clustered morosely around the railings—except for Johann, who learned early on that staying in the wheelhouse was the best course of action. It was Day Two of the journey and they were approaching land. Soon enough they would be in the calculated “sweet spot” that would put them out of range of the coast guard and able to pick an invisible path to shore in the early hours of twilight. However, for the next two hours the sky was too bright and the ship was too close to all manner of vessel- and weather-radar to allow the dragons into the air.

“She’s right,” Astrid agreed. She shrugged when Hiccup tried to glare at her. “I know why we have to do it, but it _does_ blow.”

“This whole _adventure_ blows,” Snotlout chimed in. “All we’ve done so far is sneak around, get separated from the dragons, and now we’re grounded!”

“Only for two hours!” Hiccup pointed out, throwing his hands up.

 Slightly removed from the riders, the knot of pacing dragons reverberated with discontented yowling, overcome after a few moments by Toothless. He wasn’t saying anything, just proving that he was _louder_ and therefore _in charge._

“What he said,” Hiccup muttered, gesturing at Toothless in something he wasn’t quite ready to call defeat. The Riders were sullen, but silent. Hiccup felt for them, he really did. Everyone knew how important this mission was—and he had been around his team long enough to know that their complaints weren’t due to them wavering in their devotion to the dea of Killing the Monsters and Saving the World. Probably.

They were just…Berkians. That’s what they did: complain, and whine, and often roar and threaten violence and then, while they were being as loud as possible, actually get things done with surprising ferocity and efficiency.

Which is exactly what was needed now.

“Listen, you need to take this time to rest up—the dragons especially. As soon as twilight drops, we have to go _fast._ The only way we can find the rest of the way to shore and get out of range of inhabited areas by morning is if we go hard and steady all night.” He pretended to ignore Snotlout’s inappropriate giggle. “Once we get over Greenland past Nanavut into the Northwest Territories of Canada, we’ll be safe to travel by day. Until then, however, we fly at night, and we fly _fast_ to make our hops to places we won’t be seen or, better, to places we can land that aren’t over water or completely covered in ice.”

To everyone’s credit, they _did_ mostly appear to be listening, even though Ruff seemed to be trying to give Tuff a friction burn at the same time. Tuff’s concentration didn’t appear to suffer from it.

“I know this is a rough pace, but we have to stay hidden until the time is right. The world is being ravaged by monsters—monster that, to the untrained eye, look an awful lot like our dragons.” Hiccup felt an old twisting in his gut, the same mixed helpless frustration and painful protectiveness for the dragons that he had first felt in the face of Berk’s own violent rejection of them. He’d almost lost Toothless, and the others, so _many_ times in the tide of a single tiny fishing village’s fear. He was horrified by the thought of what the PPDC could do.

“We need to reveal them on our own terms, and even then we will have a fight on our hands. We have to protect our dragons,” Hiccup said, stomach dropping just a little more even as he saw real understanding on his team’s faces.

There was a solid warmth at his side then, pressed hard against his hip. In his distraction, Hiccup hadn’t noticed that Toothless had finished rallying his own troops and they were watching him, now, serious and determined. Hiccup spared a glance at Toothless, who surveyed the group before him proudly, standing at his side and allowing Hiccup to finish.

“We have to protect _everyone_ , and send the monsters back to whatever universe they crawled out of. We may be the only ones that can. Defeating monsters is what we _do_ , and we do it _well_.

“We are ready for this fight, and we will get there, because we are the Riders and the dragons of Berk, and together we are _unstoppable_.”

Each one of the dragons had found their way to their human companions’ sides, and they looked up at Hiccup in a rare moment of utter silence.

Of course, these were Berkians, and it wasn’t more than a heartbeat before Meatlug horked up a huge mess of half-digested lava over the side of the ship, Snotlout leaned on _just_ the wrong part of Stormfly’s tail to cause her to engage her spikes, and Tuffnut started yelling bloody murder as Ruffnut released his arm and his circulation came flooding back.

The minor chaos was quite fine by Hiccup. The speeching thing was not something he enjoyed. First, all the attention on him was _weird_. Usually, when Hiccup talked, it was a battle and a half to get anyone to listen. If they hadn’t stopped staring at him in their own, he would have been incredibly tempted to break his own rules about staying on the ship, and gotten Toothless to fly him far, far away.

And, well, it reminded him of his father. This sort of thing, the inspiration, the…chiefing. Stoick seemed to take to it effortlessly, and every struggle Hiccup had with the same activities reminded him of the responsibilities he was expected to undertake some time in the future.

“Maybe we’ll die…maybe the kaiju will kill us before I have to take over in Berk,” Hiccup muttered mostly to himself. He was surprised, however, that Toothless heard and shot him a reproachful look. “I take it back!” Hiccup promised quickly.

 _Hiccup not alone. Not now and not in future_ , Toothless reminded him, seriously and without humor, an edge of a growl hiding between his words. _Should Hiccup die, We die_. Hiccup did not argue with this. It was absolute truth, and it worked both ways. _And should Hiccup be Alpha-of-Home-Nest_ —

 _We_ , agreed Hiccup. _Hiccup knows. Hiccup was—_

The word ”sarcastic” wasn’t a well-defined concept in Dragonese, as its direct translation sounded something like “wrong-joking”, so Hiccup said the word in Icelandic instead.

Toothless was very aware of Hiccup’s personal, resigned sort of humor. It was very different from most dragons’ own senses of humor, but Toothless found himself tending to it more and more often. Hiccup was _funny_ —except when he was wrong-joking about his own life. This was Not Funny, but Toothless knew it was Hiccup’s way of dealing with challenge, and he could not scold him too hard. The human did not respond with melancholy as much as he had used to in the past, but when he did, Toothless watched carefully to drag him out of it.

 _Rest now_ , Hiccup suggested to his partner, clearly changing the subject. _We fly hard soon_.

Toothless resisted the urge to laugh. Hiccup’s use of the word “hard” meant dense, like a rock. Flying like a rock; human words were so silly sometimes. He let Hiccup change the subject, though. _We rest_?

 _Not Hiccup_ , Hiccup told him. The, in Icelandic so that Astrid could hear. “The boat is stopping here until its dark enough. I’m going to swim.”

Astrid raised an incredulous eyebrow. “It’s cold as Icewing shit out there.”

“I swim in the ocean on _Berk_ ,” Hiccup pointed out. He had brought his wetsuit, stashing it as one of his few luxuries in Toothless’ saddlebags.

 _Careful_ , Toothless whistled in amusement. _Other leg freeze and fall-off_.

“Ha, ha,” Hiccup said without actually laughing. “Pull me up when I call?”

 _No, Toothless napping_ , Toothless hummed, but his tail twitched in a way that suggested untruth. Hiccup knew and trusted that Toothless would keep alert for him. He needed to move his body, just a little, and shake out the jittery energy of their true adventure, just about to begin.

The water temperature was truly miserable, but Hiccup didn’t much care after the initial, whooping shock. He had picked up swimming as a hobby in high school, when many of the others were making it a habit to work out every day. Astrid and Tuffnut both took long runs around the village after their homeschool hours, and Snotlout could often be found at Gobber’s garage bench pressing old car parts or wrestling with Fishlegs or Ruffnut.

At the time, Hiccup had been incredibly self-conscious about how skinny and weak he was. But despite his own enhancements to his prosthetic, running was never easy or fun, and lifting weights just hadn’t caught on.

Swimming, however, which came as a must for a child who was raised by the sea and often on a fishing boat, was never out of his reach. Even after his injury, the adjustment to his kicks was surprisingly minimal.

Interestingly, to Hiccup at least, swimming was not an activity most terrestrial dragons enjoyed overmuch, including Toothless. His other half _could_ swim, after a fashion, and treaded water admirably, but while Hiccup swam Toothless preferred to watch anxiously from shore. Dragon dinners were caught form the surface or the shallows, in quick dives and strikes. Splashing about in deep water for more than a few minutes seemed to offend Toothless and the others on a personal level.

So Hiccup was alone, submerging himself gladly in the calm, eddying surf. Below the surface waves, the water was shockingly clear and empty for miles. Hiccup stayed under for as long as he could bear, surfaced, and dove once more, entranced by the familiar feeling of freefall that was interrupted by the buoyancy of the deep water. The sea was not home like the sky was, but it was familiar and comforting all the same.

After a few laps around the boat, Hiccup surfaced again to the impatient noise of a dragon who thought he’d been in the water _long enough, thank you_. Laughing and whistling amused assent, Hiccup paddled over to the rope ladder draped overs the ship railing. Hooking himself into it, Hiccup called ”Alright, bud!” and let himself be jerked up onto the deck.

The tableaux that greeted him when he got his bearings was just _nice_. The dragons and riders had paired off, scattering across the decks to rest in the dying sunset. The twins and Snotlout were passed out and snoring, curled with their companions. Fishlegs and Meatlug were clustered around the quiet buzzing of Fishlegs’ tablet, and Astrid was grooming Stormfly, softly crooning at her as they stood a little apart in a way that suggested Astrid was practicing her Dragonese.

Toothless released the rope ladder as Hiccup sprawled on the deck. Instead of letting him retrieve a towel or his leg, Toothless got right to work licking his rider top-to-toe. Hiccup protested quietly, but Toothless ignored him. Dragons enjoyed salt as much as any predator, and there was the helpful bonus of warming up Hiccup much faster than a towel and humans’ inefficient shivering-as-temperature regulation ever could. Eventually, Hiccup laughingly pushed Toothless off and stripped out of his wetsuit. No one paid him the least shred of attention. Over the years, the riders had been forcibly cured of their modesty and any shame of nudity. Part of that may have been their consistent proximity with dragons who had no body shame to begin with.

Especially Meatlug, who _really_ had to stop licking herself in public places. Even Toothless thought of that as a Bit Much.

Warm and reclothed, Hiccup sighed as he scanned the sky. Their little interlude in the Atlantic was at an end. It was time to go, and go _fast._

Hiccup stood deliberately, surveying his friends and siblings-in-arms.

“Alright, Riders,” he barked, startling Hookfang enough for him to flame up on a sleeping Snotlout and leave a clear char-mark on the deck. Hopefully, Johann wouldn’t notice.

“Mount up,” he ordered. “It’s time to fly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (thank you to everyone who was so kind to say hello last week. you really gave me a little bit of new life and enthusiasm for this)


	8. Not My Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, my boss went into labor 10 days early and so now Everything is Panic and also our subway was on fire again.
> 
> (boss and baby are fine and adorable. subway is less so)

Night-flying in early spring was strange and exhausting for all involved. The sky turned black as pitch quite early in the afternoon, still, and for both dragons and humans the unusual dark took a strange toll on their wakefulness. Greenland’s night air was frigid and alternately clinging wet and achingly dry. There were very few suitable places to stop and land. They had to fly almost all the way to Nuuk before dawn, across the whole frozen shelf of Greenland, and it was mostly on the coasts that one could find anything but ice beneath one’s claws.

They lifted off with a wave to Johann, who wasn’t even trying to hide what a relief it was to see their tails. Toothless horked a quiet dragon-laugh into the night.

There wasn’t much to amuse them, and too many acrobatics beyond straight flying would be too much to handle for any of the dragons. Fishlegs and Astrid kept them on course by sharing GPS duties, passing the heavy, military-grade display back and forth, its sickly green backlighting glowing disturbingly over the dragons’ scales. Eventually, they settled into a tight flight pattern with Toothless and Hiccup in front just enough to read the wind and adjust direction to take advantage of any friendly air currents. Toothless reasoned that he and possibly Stormfly were the best poised to take on any turbulence and direct the more vulnerable flyers away from trouble. The others were simply too heavy and not aerodynamic enough.

It was creeping upon hour six of twelve, and Hiccup had spotted a break in the ice a few miles wide, revealing rocky tundra that seemed fine enough for a quick rest. They would reach it in ten or fifteen minutes. It was not even a little too soon; they’d been flying with the frigid wind whipping in their ears like a storm. Even Hiccup, who was used to an even reveled in more dramatic conditions, felt like he was starting to hallucinate, his heartbeat thumping like bass in his ears.

“Do you _hear_ that?” demanded Astrid as Stormfly swooped in beside Hiccup and Toothless. “It sounds like, I don’t know, House music or something.”

Oh. It wasn’t just him.

“Bud?” asked Hiccup.

 _Guess who_ , Toothless snarked, jerking his head to the back of the formation.

The twins. Hiccup leaned forward to rest his forehead against the back of Toothless’ neck, groaning. Astrid took a deep breath before turning around to yell.

She yelled the entire time it took them to land, and was still going as Hiccup dismounted Toothless, shaking out his legs. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were unsurprisingly unrepentant. In fact, they were defending their _dragon-back speaker system_ , mounted on Barf and Belch’s saddlebags, quite vehemently.

“What is it about ‘trying to be stealthy’ do you two not understand?!” Astrid demanded. Her hands were twitching, reaching for her axe and pulling away when she realized she could not actually use it in this situation.

Well, hopefully she realized it.

 _Happy they-them are not responsibility of Toothless_ , Toothless snorted.

 _Barf-and-Belch have tied own self into a knot_ , Hiccup pointed out smugly. Sure enough, the dragon had tangled his own necks in a healthy approximation of a reef knot. Toothless narrowed his eyes at Hiccup before a deep growl vibrated out of his chest and he stalked off to deal with his own mess.

Hiccup turned to rescuing the twins. Punishing them, yes, also, but rescuing them.

“Give me the stereo,” Hiccup demanded. There was the expected whinging and convoluted reasoning that accompanied this order.

“It’s the only thing stopping Barf and Belch from falling out of the sky! They’re too bored to remember to regulate their heartbeat—that’s why we have this thumping bass!” argued Tuffnut.

“The only reason we are pushing our dragons so hard in the middle of the night is because stealth is _key_ ,” Hiccup pointed out. “How are you even keeping this running?”

“We stuffed his saddlebags with D-batteries,” Ruffnut informed him matter-of-factly.

"Stereo, now,” ordered Hiccup.

To his surprise, Meatlug, who was contentedly licking at interesting rocks through the lichen that blanketed their landing spot, let out a noise of disappointment.

Hiccup turned to look at her trying not to give him big hatchling-eyes.

“…yes?” he asked, not really wanting her to elaborate.  
               

 _Only…_ Meatlug started out a bit shyly. _Liked music. To me, was pleasing. Fishlegs too pleased by ‘dropping bass’!_

Hiccup was mystified that Meatlug even know what “dropping the bass” meant, much less that she’d found a way to say it in Dragonese. And she liked it. Hiccup tried to look to Toothless for help, but instead saw Stormfly, who was hopping nervously, her gaze flicking between the twins and a fuming Astrid.

 _Stormfly_? Hiccup asked.

 _To Astrid, sound is not-pleasing,_ Stormfly said diplomatically. Then, she chirped a wistful sigh. _But it is pleasing to Stormfly._

Hiccup rolled his gaze to Hookfang, who was pretending to not be paying rapt attention to the entire ridiculous argument.

“Do you have any objections?” Hiccup asked them.

Hookfang snorted and looked away as if they could not be bothered to answer.

Hiccup, who had just gotten his hands on the wireless bluetooth speakers, sighed heavily and tossed them back to the twins. They were grinning as if they had understood every word of the mostly-Dragonese exchange. They might have done—the twins’ understanding of _any_ language, be it English, Dragonese, or even Icelandic, was both selective and scary.

“You keep them at the volume that I set them to, and no higher,” Hiccup warned. “And they’re _off_ before we get within thirty kilometers of Nuuk, understand?”

“What?!” demanded Astrid. 

 _What,_ demanded Toothless flatly, padding over as Barf and Belch finally untangled himself.

Hiccup’s shoulders bounced in a helpless shrug. “I’ve been outvoted.”

Amid the truly obnoxious cheering of the twins, Astrid turned on Hiccup with her arms crossed. “Democracy? Since when is this a Thing?”

“Nice pun,” Hiccup snorted as Astrid tried to fight back a smirk and continue to look intimidating. “Stormfly was a vocal proponent of this coup, so you should take it up with her.”

Stormfly wiggled her tail and shoulders happily.

“Ugh,” muttered Astrid, totally melting.

Hiccup wiggled his shoulders and hips in a horrible imitation, startling a bark of dragon-laughter out of his other half.

 _Hiccup not so cute_ , Toothless huffed. Hiccup winked, startling another huffing laugh out of Toothless. Astrid pretended not to know either of them and focused on rubbing down Stormfly.

“Ten minutes rest, then in the air!” Astrid warned everyone.

“Driver’s choice of music!” Tuffnut announced.

It would be a long six hours.

 

* * *

 

INTERLUDE: BARF-AND-BELCH

Barf and Belch was very happy. He was on the ground, which was not always a thing-to-be-happy-about, but today it was because he was quite tired.

He also had his human passed out and flopping dramatically in the space between his necks. Barf and Belch was pretty sure he only had one human, just like his human had one Barf and Belch, and the flock had only one Alpha, just one half for dragons and one half for humans.

The Ruffnut half of his human was snoring on his Barf half’s neck, and the Tuffnut half had his arms wrapped around the front claws on his Belch half’s side.

His human seemed to have a preference for which halves liked which halves of Barf and Belch. That made sense, in the same way that humans had different boots for different feet. Barf and Belch knew all about boots. Mildew had buried him in boots once. They were soft to sleep on but not good to eat, which is why he had been surprised when he had been told he had eaten the boots. To this day, he was pretty sure he hadn’t. Whether he had or not, though, he’d gotten lots of mackerel from his human as a reward, so he supposed it didn’t matter.

Barf and Belch was tired, but he was too happy to sleep just yet. The sun was coming up, after all, and even though everyone had found a fairly shaded rock formation to nap under during the day, it still felt very strange.

Snotlout and Hookfang had drawn first watch, and while Snotlout perched on top of the rocks looking out across the taiga, Hookfang patrolled the lower perimeter of the outcrop, keeping nose and ears open but staying out of sightline of any place humans could approach from the ground. Hookfang paused their patrol when they saw Barf and Belch was awake.

 _Go-sleep_ , Hookfang ordered irritably. _Or go-patrol. I should-not-be awake if another dragon can do my job_.

Barf and Belch hissed a laugh. Hookfang’s tongue kept coming out to scent the air; they were not ready to sleep or let Snotlout patrol alone, even for all their grumbling talk.

Hookfang did not appreciate being laughed at and took a half-hearted snap at Barf and Belch’s human. Barf and Belch moved too fast to protect the human, and he cracked his skulls together, whimpering quietly. Hookfang rolled their eyes and stalked away, looking a little repentant for causing actual damage.

Barf and Belch immediately dropped his heads, stunned and hurting.

“Shh-shh, Barf,” Ruffnut mumbled in her sleep. “Come on.” She flailed her hands, smacking her brother-half across the snout before settling to pet roughly at Barf’s forehead and brow ridge. She was careful to also dig her fingers gently into the area behind his horn, which was the best part to pet on that half. “Shh, go t’bed,” the Ruffnut half told him, still mostly asleep. “I’ll protect you”.

The Tuffnut half took a different tack, and as soon as the Belch head dropped onto his prone body, he wrapped all four limbs around Belch’s neck and yelped, “Mine, mine, I’ll fight you, you stupid werewolves, he’s mine and I have a flamethrower!”

Neither of these two reactions did much to actually sooth Barf and Belch’s blooming headache, but he didn’t care. His human was very sweet, even in its sleep. Barf and Belch was pretty sure he had the smartest human, too, even smarter than the Alpha—but only _sometimes_ , and he would _never_ say that in front of the Toothless-Alpha.

The best part of his human, Barf and Belch thought, was that it had different strength in its different halves. It was like how the Barf head breathed as and the Belch head set it alight.

The Tuffnut half came up with the _best_ ideas. He was the one who played all that helpful music! The Ruffnut half was the one who set those ideas on fire. If Tuffnut started an explosion, Ruffnut made it _bigger_. She remembered all the D-batteries and had picked a song with the deepest and most pounding booming.

So—Tuffnut, gas; Ruffnut, spark.

Toothless-Alpha had explained to him where they were going and what they were doing. There was a new Red Queen to fight, a new hive mind to conquer. There would be destruction—that was why Ruffnut and Tuffnut were going. They would be protecting the big flock, the Flock of the World, Toothless had also said, but Barf and Belch didn’t care about that. Protecting his human was the Most Important Thing. Barf and Belch didn’t need the guilt or inspiration of the end of the world to be on board.

The Tuffnut half clamped a little tighter to Belch’s neck, and Ruffnut’s petting slowed until her arm was slung, motionless, around Barf’s horn. Barf and Belch sighed happily, finally content to sleep. For right now, all was right in his world. Tomorrow wasn’t important until it came.


	9. Kornflex

Waking at sundown was disconcerting, to be frank, despite all that the Academy was used to strange sunlight hours from their home on the Arctic Circle. There was something about the fatigue of having breakfast at nightfall that the strongest tea couldn’t touch. The orange blush of light on the horizon that was Nuuk at night was skirted handily, and then it was just the Riders, the dragons, and the wine-dark sea.

As soon as it was apparent that the House music was actually kind of enjoyable, the twins lost interest and Hiccup confiscated the speaker to see if he could tune the radio antenna on it. He had been getting more and more unsettled as they lost WiFi and 4G signal off Iceland, and hadn’t been able to pick up their usual English-language news bulletins. There hadn’t been a Kaiju attack in almost six weeks before they’d left, and the whole world was belly-tense with the stinking, constant knowledge that another would surely come soon.

A grainy Canadian station began to manifest itself after midnight, and by a few hours before sunrise, most of the words were audible. The news was not good.

_“…Memorial services are behind held across Canada and America for the victims of the Ogopogo attack, including the pilots of the two air-support ballistic helicopters.”_

Hiccup’s stomach went cold and taut. Beneath him, Toothless’ shoulders tensed. Another attack, and more death. The Jaegers had been winning lately, but at the cost of hundreds of lives. It was better than the millions that humanity _stood_ to lose, but every attack came at a price. Sometimes, it was skyscrapers that fell and were used as bludgeons and maces, the shelters trampled or those people too slow or incapable of getting to them in time. Sometimes, it was the air support, the missile defense, and the personnel with the instruments and visuals to make up for the poor optics that still plagued the Mark II’s. 

Hiccup dug his knuckle into the soft side of Toothless’ neck where he would still feel the pressure and comfort, even above the numbing gale of the quick, cold air. In response, Toothless purred deeply, vibrating his throat just _so_ , letting Hiccup feel comfort as well.

“Bad news?” Astrid asked, coming up beside them on Stormfly.

Hiccup nodded, hunching his shoulders grimly. He tossed the radio to Astrid, and Stormfly dove briefly when she fumbled it.

“ _…the autopsy reports are being released now, pursuant to UN-PPDC joint regulation, stating the pilots died instantly in the resulting conflagration…”_ and then Hiccup couldn’t hear it anymore.

 _This_ was why they were frozen and aching somewhere over the Davis strait, riding into, as the Twins referred to it, the Great Beyond. There was a better way to fight Kaiju without letting all these men and women die, Hiccup just _knew_ it. The Jaegers were good at what they did, but the collateral damage was becoming just too much.

Hiccup knew that he and Toothless couldn’t save everyone. He had resigned himself to the uncomfortable knowledge that they would probably have to kill. The Kaiju were so like the dragons—scary ones, like the Screaming Death and DeathSong—but as he would need to convince all of the PPDC, they were _not_ dragons. They were the enemy, and they might have to die.

No one else did, though. Not if Hiccup could save them.

He clenched his fingers in determination against the handle straps of the saddle, and Toothless grunted an answering noise.

Despite the length of the cold evening, most of the Riders seemed to be in a good mood. Somewhat coming to terms with the inverted days, always ready for a battle, they were much rowdier than the night before, and the dragons fed off the additional excitement. It was a giddiness born of fatigue, but if it left everyone in a better mood than the beginning of their flight, Hiccup wasn’t going to interrupt.

Snotlout was so tired and mellow that he even tolerated Fishlegs trying to give him the threatened English lessons.

[“Dragons are friends, not Kaiju,” Fishlegs prompted.

[“Dragins are frands, not Kaizhu,” Snotlout parroted absently.

“Oh, ohh, Snotlout!” Tuffnut broke in. “Tell us what you like to eat for breakfast!”

“We didn’t _have_ breakfast except for protein bars today,” Snotlout complained. “If I was at home, I’d eat—“

[“No, no, in English,” Ruffnut ordered.

[“I like Seerioss,” Snotlout said slowly.

The twins started cracking up so hard they almost knocked Barf-and-Belch’s heads together. [“Serious Cheerios, Serious Cheerios!” they chanted.

“What else, what else?” Tuffnut asked as he cackled.

[“Kornflex?”

That was too much for them, and Tuffnut laughed hard enough that he slid off the side of Belch’s neck and was only caught by his sister hooking her fingers into his dreadlocks and _yanking_.

“ _Cheerios_ and _Cornflakes_ ,” Fishlegs tried seriously, but Snotlout was too busy trying to get Hookfang to “destroy the Helspawn” and took no notice.

“Fall in,” Hiccup ordered half-heartedly.

No one listened, not even Astrid. She and Stormfly had dropped somewhat behind the rest of the group to cup the radio speakers between them. Hiccup decided something vague about discretion and valor and concentrated on enjoying the night flight.

Baffin Island came into sight just as the sky began to lose its blue-black edge in the threatening morning. Carefully avoiding the incoming lights of a port city, the riders scouted a place to camp in the deeper forests further from the shore and from society. The final leg of their flight, a few days across Canada, would not be a direct route, but it would take them across the wilder northern territories, far from prying eyes. Hiccup needed all the time he could get to plan their arrival at Kodiak Island. He and toothless still hadn’t come up with a way to ensure the safety of the dragons without prompting a full-scale Kaiju warning.

They spotted suitable cover a little before dawn, and the exhausted team settled gratefully and more-or-less gracefully into a clearing in the vast wooded stretch they had been flying over.

“Okay, team. Let’s work fast before dawn. As soon as you unload the saddlebags, Ruff, Tuff—I saw a creek out a ways. Take the charcoal filters and the dragons. Snotlout, Fishlegs, unpack the tents and start some lean-to’s. Astrid, you and I will spread out for firewood. And Toothless, can you make us somewhere to set the cooking fires tomorrow morning—I mean. Tonight, when we wake up?”

Toothless replied by happily blasting a nice-sized charred ring, turning the loam and sand underneath to ash and glass. It would be safe to build a fire there for tea and breakfast when they woke up.

Much to Hiccup’s surprise and delight, his team more-or-less did as instructed. Sure, Ruff and Tuff were discussing dragon-borne and inevitably destructive ways to carry water back to camp, but it wasn’t cause for alarm _yet_.

Astrid had already disappeared to look for firewood and also presumably to see if there was anything edible in the area, so Hiccup struck off as well.

“You and Stormfly should go get water, too,” Hiccup told Toothless with a parting scratch.

 _Yes yes,_ Toothless agreed fondly. _Hiccup be careful; new place could-have enemies._

Hiccup huffed a soft laugh as he strode off. The dragons were intellectually aware that the islands around Berk were some of the few places on earth where they existed, but for most of the dragons, the fear of new places translated to fear of aggressive dragon species not fear of, say, _bears_.

Hiccup hoped they didn’t encounter any bears because the dragons would _terrify_ them.

Hiccup returned to camp within an hour, having set a few snares in the surrounding wood in case anything delicious wandered in overnight. Journey cakes and beef jerky and Cliff bars were fine, but if someone gave Snotlout a rabbit and a little time, good things happened.

The rest of the Riders had finished their tasks for the night and were busy running through their sleeping rituals. Hiccup regretted that Fishlegs’ and Meatlug’s involved singing, but it was good to see everyone in a fine enough mood. Even Hookfang understood the concept of forests and self-immolation being mutually exclusive in this case and was submitting relatively obediently to a vigorous rub-down by Snotlout to clean himself, rather than just incinerating.

Stormfly was at the edge of camp, hopping impatiently and waiting for—

“Is Astrid back yet?” Hiccup asked no one in particular.

Seeing him return, Stormfly let out a friendly shriek and bounded over. Hiccup felt Toothless come up behind him as he tried to translate Stormfly’s quick, high chatter.

 _Astrid!_ Stormfly began, then followed up with something too fast for Hiccup to follow.

“Is she alright?” Hiccup asked warily, even though Stormfly, though distressed, was not unduly panicking.

 _Not in danger,_ Stormfly hedged, shifting on her claws, and then chattered again.

 _Nadders speak too quick_ , Toothless scolded gently. _Hiccup not understanding_.

Stormfly snorted impatiently in Toothless’ direction. Still, she tried. _Astrid upset and told me to leave. Out in forest, won’t come back,_ Stormfly explained, the heaving of her shoulders suggesting the slow speaking speed was entirely beneath her.

Hiccup frowned. Astrid _had_ seemed quiet for most of the flight, but the pace and tension of the adventure had started to take a toll on everyone, and Astrid was the type to withdraw when stressed. Hiccup hadn’t worried before, but if she had sent even _Stormfly_ away…

 _And-so, Astrid sitting alone in forest?_ Hiccup verified.

Stormfly twitched her head in denial. _Not sitting. Axe-throwing_ , she replied.

Hiccup and Toothless exchanged a loo. Astrid was _very_ upset, then.

 _Stormfly good? Stormfly sad-upset-unhappy?_ Toothless asked her, checking in. Hiccup was grateful; he hadn’t gotten beyond trying to parse out his riders’ moods, and hadn’t given much thought yet to Stormfly’s own obvious stress signals.

Stormfly shuffled again. _Worried. Want-to help_.

Hiccup nodded. “We all do.”

But Stormfly chirped a denial. _No-no. Like Toothless. Hiccup sad? Hiccup worried? Toothless help!_

Hiccup thought he understood. “Are you worried because you think Astrid is shutting you out?”

Stormfly whistled a miserable _yes_.

Hiccup squared his shoulders. “Well then. We’d best find her and see what she needs, right?

Stormfly began to perk up a bit. _Yes! You-help? Go-help?_

“Of course. Have to get my best girls sorted,” Hiccup agreed, scratching Stormfly’s chin and speaking much more affectionately than he might have had Astrid been there. Stormfly, he understood, but his relationship with his right-hand, rival, and sister-in-arms had always been both close and muddled.

Didn’t mean that he cared for her any less, and he was determined to find out what was causing her upset.

To her credit, Astrid had made herself deliberately easy to find if one was really looking. She clearly didn’t mean to cause anyone to worry. She was only just out of sight of the camp, arrhythmic thump-cracking leading Hiccup and Toothless right to her.

She was hurling axes at a much-beleaguered pine tree, and Hiccup wisely waited until the weapon was out of her hands before interrupting. He took a moment to take in his friend’s obvious distress. She was pointedly ignoring all of them, even Stormfly, her mouth set in a grim line, her brow drawn, hands steady. Too steady, actually. She was fully in protector-mode, and Hiccup couldn’t figure out _why_.

“So, something’s bugging you,” Hiccup pointed out without preamble, not giving Astrid a chance to hedge or tell him to go away. “Stormfly wanted to know what it is, but apparently you’re not talking to her. What happened?”

 _Astrid?_ Stormfly trilled helpfully. _Look sad look angry but flight long flight boring? Why sad?_

“Nothing ‘happened’,” Astrid snapped, ignoring what Stormfly was saying completely. “I just have to be _better_.”

Stormfly made a concerned noise.

“Better?” Hiccup asked, frowning “Better how?”

Astrid jerked her axe out of the tree with vastly more force than necessary. “Just better! I mean, for the love of Thor, Hiccup what are we doing?”

Hiccup felt Toothless bump him gently with his shoulder, but he didn’t need the warning—this was not a question he needed to answer. Sure enough, Astrid kept going, stalking back to take her mark as she did.

“It’s all well and good that we’re a couple of ancient Vikings on our noble steeds and all, but—what _are_ we? We’re not trained soldiers, we aren’t pilots—“ Astrid hurled the axe again, this time with aggression and not for accuracy. It hit the tree anyway. “—and if real pilots can be taken down out of the sky in an _instant_ , what chance do we have?”

 _Oh_.

“Is this about the news bulletin today?” Hiccup asked. “And the pilots that got killed?”

Astrid gave a full-body twitch and refused to look at him.

“Astrid, I know you’re worried, but—“

“Save it,” Astrid snapped. “I get it. We have to do this. That’s who we, the Dragon Riders, are. But if even professional fighter pilots are dying, what are my chances of keeping everyone safe?”

Hiccup blinked, taking in the level of responsibility that Astrid was foisting on herself, but she was still talking, going to yank her axe out of the tree again.

“And what do we think we have that the PPDC does not?”

Hiccup didn’t give the obvious answer, both out of tact and because Stormfly had finally had enough.

 _Me,_ Stormfly announced shrilly, her spikes bristling, lumbering into Astrid’s line of vision with her tail poised and swaying. _Astrid worried, Astrid think alone, pilots die alone, but Astrid **not** alone!_ _Not flying plane—_ the dragons had created a word for the concept of an airplane, but had always spoken it with a certain amount of disgust— _flying with-Me!_ Stormfly cocked her head and very sincerely popped the Hiccup-and-Toothless noise, the we-sound, the partner-sound.

Astrid, wo had not been able to look at Hiccup as he talked, was transfixed by the sight of her distraught dragon. Hiccup watched her translating, then her eyes went soft and wet as she began to make sense of the Nadder’s words.

“Stormfly…” Astrid said softly, but then Stormfly jerked her head and body in a clear ‘no’-gesture. Astrid’s face fell even further. _Stormfly…_ she tried again, this time in Dragonese.

They both were frozen almost within wing distance, eyeing each other warily, tension vibrating in their necks and limbs. Hiccup and Toothless withdrew as far as they could, not daring to interrupt.

Then, as gently as a thirty-foot dragon could manage, Stormfly edged one taloned paw closer to Astrid, then lowered her head with the same massive gentleness so that her chin rested on top of Astrid’s skull.

 _Astrid’s signals fear-alone,_ Stormfly hummed. A shiver rolled through Astrid as Hiccup and Toothless watched. _But-though, Stormfly heard_ , Stormfly continued, backing away just a little so she could use her whole body to communicate.

That, though, was the last straw for Astrid. Dropping her axe, she threw herself forward, slamming against Stormfly’s side and throwing her arms around the Nadder.

 _What you-have that no-one-else has? You have **me** , _Stormfly said.

It was time for Hiccup and Toothless to go. As tempting as it was to stay and watch the conclusion, to make sure beyond a doubt that this would smooth both the human and the dragon’s jagged feelings, this was between Astrid and Stormfly, now.

Hiccup slipped onto Toothless’ back and they crept back toward camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I realize that I took the entirety of my boss' maternity leave to put this one up. Rest assured, all I've been doing as we were down three (3!) team members is thinking about these dorks. 
> 
> Rambling below: 
> 
> This isn't the last we see about Astrid and Stormfly's communication journey. I love the idea of Hiccup and Toothless already being an established team and understanding each other just as well as they do in the movie/show. However, its a process, and although this story is best with Hiccup and Toothless at the end of it, I really thought it was important to show riders and dragons at several different phases. Astrid loves Stormfly, but she forgets sometimes that Stormfly is just as sapient as she is, especially with the communication barrier so high (for the love of Thor, Stormfly, slow down when you talk). 
> 
> I think it's a universal problem: sometimes, if we don't understand someone, if a communication or culture barrier is too high, we tend to relegate them to a category of 'lesser' without even realizing it. Stormfly is doing a bit better, but she is haughty in her own way and needs to meet Astrid in the middle, since Stormfly can't compromise by learning Icelandic. 
> 
> I didn't make this a traditional "interlude" for a reason; the reason being they'll get their own a little later. 
> 
> (Um speaking of interludes, I have one coming up that will be posted separately, probably next chapter; the reason being it's not actually 'canon' to this story but more along the lines of my 'We' series so you can skip it if that's not your thing. And if it is your thing, hold your horses, because I have no way of stopping myself from this)


	10. Canada

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter occurs directly after Chapter 9. However, there is an optional "Private Interlude" entitled "Self Control" between chapters 9 and 10 that you can find here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8591290 
> 
> Please read all warnings on the private interlude. I hope it serves as an explanation as to why this chapter was so long in coming.

                 The radio remained a part of their flights, and it was operated by Astrid. Hiccup, aware he was taking his life into his own hands, had attempted to ask if she thought it was a good idea, but Toothless managed to fly him out of the line of fire before she could start throwing things in response.

                So Astrid was in charge of the radio. Snotlout tried once, and only once, to stage an incursion and appropriate the radio for more twin-inspired shenanigans. After he was subdued—and _eventually_ rescued by Hookfang after what seemed to be a little too much freefall, in Hiccup’s opinion—the rest of the night’s flight passed flicking between the BBC world service, Canadian Public Broadcasting, and the Hong Kong Shatterdome’s short wave radio broadcasts (which ended up being much more musical and entertaining than Astrid seemed to have been expecting.)

                Of course, everything was quiet on the Western shore. No one expected upheaval in the water so soon after Ogopogo , not really. There was no help for it, though. There was a singular, universal trauma in the human psyche that left the world crouched in collective anxiety after each and every invasion. In the face of inarguable human fear, logic did not stand a chance. So they listened, absurdly grateful even for the news stories of far-away cruelty—coastal upheaval, resource riots, the looming promise of that damnable wall—if it meant they were safe from all-out Kaiju invasion.

                Every time Hiccup felt his body thrum in relief at the regional misfortunes of others, he clenched his fists tighter around the roughened edges of his flight gauntlets, stopping only when Toothless smelled blood and took an unanticipated dive out of the sky. Without pause, Toothless dunked Hiccup into a convenient, freezing pond and _scolded_ him for his behavior.

                Hiccup did not miss the crowing from Snotlout or the demanding shrieks from the twins ordering Barf-and-Belch to do the same to them, but the shock of icy water all the way through his flight suit drove all thoughts out of his mind except _cold._

And then he was out again, somehow rolled unceremoniously off Toothless’ back and onto dry land. Hiccup sputtered, immediately trying to shake the pockets of water out of his tight flight suit before giving up and stripping out of the soaked leather.

                “Toothless!” he yelled, annoyed all over again when his voice came out an enraged squeak instead of the roar that Stoick the Vast would have been able to muster. When Toothless glared at him without a single shred of contrition, Hiccup threw his chest piece at him. Toothless caught it easily in his jaws and dropped it on the ground. Then, without breaking eye contact with Hiccup, he slowly licked it until it was covered in dragon spit.

                “You _know_ that doesn’t wash out!” Hiccup protested.

                Toothless did his best pissy-Fishlegs impression, nose in the air with derision.

                “Seriously, what’s gotten into you?” Hiccup demanded, his fingers both frozen into stillness and yet still throbbing where he’d sliced them open on his gear.

                Toothless dropped the act and surged forward into Hiccup’s space, shoving his nose into Hiccup’s cold hands. The vast warmth of the dragon immediately soothed the worst of Hiccup’s discomforts.

                _That_ , snapped Toothless. _Fear-of-Hiccup. Doing what? What Hiccup doing? Like wrong-joking only with skin and Toothless_ does not _like_.

                Chastised and unable to play dumb, Hiccup instead attempted to move to better look Toothless in the eye, only to stumble and fall on his butt in the mud and ducked his head, waiting for Toothless ire to pass.

                _Toothless fears also. I-too must remember why-fighting. And when battle, when fight, must always keep wings beating._

                A particularly hard shiver that Hiccup could not suppress tore up his spine, and Toothless sighed in annoyance before wrapping snugly around him, warming Hiccup and drying his clothes, even the bits of sodden flight suit that he took care to lay on or against.

                _Must fly forward_ , Toothless continued. _We rely on Toothless’ wings to fly forward and-if-fear? If-falter? If-fail? We fall out of sky. But Toothless must make choice every wing-beat and sometimes…choice very hard._

Beneath Hiccup’s hand, Toothless’ great flanks were suddenly trembling.

                There was a cold that rose in Hiccup in response that had nothing to do with the pond or the wind.

                “Toothless, I—“

                _No_ , Toothless cautioned. _This is not-for pity_.

                “I know that, but—“

                _No_ , Toothless said firmly thrusting his great snout into Hiccup’s face.

                “I took it for granted,” Hiccup persisted. “That you were just as scared as me.”

                Toothless snorted. _Nightfuries are not scared. Nightfuries_ fear _. Fear keeps safe._ Toothless bumped just a little more firmly against his rider. _But Toothless does-not need fear, because Hiccup will keep safe._

                Hiccup threw his arms around Toothless’ neck so violently that it had to hurt. But neither one of them seemed to care.

                “I get it,” Hiccup said quietly.

                “Uh…? Guys?” broke in Fishlegs. The rest of the riders were arrayed almost out of earshot, but they had clearly been shamelessly staring at the confrontation. They were all wearing various expressions of impatience, ranging from Snotlout’s pissy-and-restless to Astrid’s single eyebrow-raise.

                “We’re going, we’re going,” conceded Hiccup, shuddering before slipping back into his still-damp leathers.

                “If you’re sure…” Astrid hedged, very obviously _not_ sure of either Hiccup’s sanity or of the resolution of the conflict, such as it was.

                Hiccup was still too overwhelmed to have any sort of pithy comeback ready, so he pretended he was taking the high road of not responding and mounted Toothless.

                “Even the harness is wet!” he squawked as Toothless took off without giving him a second to settle.

                _Toothless is like a heater-of-small-rooms_ , Toothless pointed out, his snark somewhat dampened by the fact that dragons didn’t have a good word for the concept of a space-heater.

                In response, Hiccup laid out flat against Toothless’ neck, which he knew was annoying and uncomfortable but was also the best way o getting the most surface area of _wet_ against the heat of Toothless’ skin and scales.

                Toothless huffed but did not complain otherwise, and they flew on.

* * *

 

                There was still urgency in the Academy’s flight, but now that they did not have to rush over seas and straits at night and were entering into Canada’s uninhabited north, the breakneck speeds slowed for the sake of the dragons. Hiccup and Fishlegs had spent weeks plotting the course, calculating common wind current regions, taking into account direct routing versus how far north they were reasonably willing to go and what that meant for useable full-darkness at this time of spring. They should be spending somewhere in the vicinity of a week or a little more, if they crossed Canada at a reasonable speed.

                The dragons seemed to be enjoying themselves. Hiccup made sure to check with all of them more often, after what had happened with Stormfly and Astrid.

                Meatlug, when Hiccup asked her one night, had replied that she was excited about all the new rock she was getting to try Hiccup had been worried that Meatlug would tire the fastest, but she looked determined.

                _Challenge_ , she admitted, _but happy. Fly-with Fishlegs, sleep lots_. Hiccup had to laugh at that—not being near a reliable source of fish, the dragons had needed several hours to hunt before and after flights, but Meatlug had the good fortune to not have to look far, even for her favorite types of rock. She spent a lot of time sleeping instead.

                _How-feel about Alaska?_ Hiccup asked, settling down next to the rock pile Fishlegs had helped dig for her before running off to join Snotlout off for a bath in a nearby river.

                Meatlug chewed thoughtfully, then shook her shoulders in a variation of a dragon-shrug.

                _Fishlegs asked me this_ , she said finally. _I think is fair. Fishlegs say Kaiju_ —the word the dragons had picked for ‘kaiju’ was a hard growl, mixed with the sound and body signal for “outsider”— _like Red Queen. Fishlegs fought Red Queen to save dragons. Why-not I fight Red Queen to save humans? She used her teeth to decisively split a spur of rock. Is fair._

                _Not-fear?_ Hiccup checked.

                _Why? Not-fighting now. Will-fight and when fight, then may-be scared. But is fair_ , she stressed. She could tell that Hiccup wasn’t quite understanding, and softened, trying to re-explain. Of all the dragons, Meatlug seemed to share the most, emotionally, with humans, and was eager to use her understanding and communicate better. She liked explaining, whether it was to Hiccup or to the other dragons. She did not always quite understand humans the way Toothless did, but her enthusiasm was boundless.

                _You, and Fishlegs, fear things far-away_ she began. Hiccup had this conversation with her before. Dragons did not, as a rule, suffer from anxiety. The feared and hoped and got nervous, but the concept of fearing what posed no immediate, rational threat was foreign in many ways.

                _I may-have eggs_ , she tried, pushing past Hiccup’s befuddled expression to enumerate, _and I may-want to protect them. May-fear things that do-not-bite because they hurt eggs, or may-hurt eggs. This like human fearing far-away things._

                Hiccup had not yet taken it upon himself to even broach the subject of anxiety attacks with her, but he had a feeling Hookfang had, with dubious success. Still, her grasp of the underlying emotion, at least, was firm.

                _Difference is_ , she continued, _must-protect eggs. No option. Must-protect. And-so, cannot fear far-away things that do-not-bite, because fear keeps e safe. Makes me run or fight. But should not run, should not fight. Should protect eggs. Fear not useful now. That is why dragons fear what bites-right-now. Useless to fear any other thing. Too much energy._

                So Fi _shlegs is your eggs_ , Hiccup teased, dropping his jaw in a dragon grin even as he tried to process the thoughts—the understanding that, out of survival, dragons could not use anxiety as a survival instinct because they were hard-wired to protect their flock or their eggs or their family and could not afford the flight reflex. He would have to mull that over later.

                Meatlug was very good at picking up Hiccup’s sense of humor, and grunted unamusement at the teasing, although her body language said otherwise.

                Hiccup tossed her a knob of stone from the pile, then levered himself to standing, feeling a lot easier, at least about one of his charges.

                They had crossed into Alaska just before touching down that evening, and were only about a day and a half flight from Kodiak Island. They still hadn’t come up with a plan for how to approach civilization yet—essentially, how to reveal the dragons without getting shot.

                As everyone trickled back into their day-camp, Hiccup solicited ideas.

                “But, I mean, should we really just reveal ourselves to them out of the blue?” worried Fishlegs. “What are humans going to do if they’re surprised _and_ scared?”

                “Oh, sure, we should have called ahead,” snorted Snotlout. “I can imagine it now—it would have to be a big, fancy letter too. ‘Dear Marshal Hot-Snot, I know dragons aren’t real and also look a lot like the aliens trying to take over earth. But be nice to them, because a bunch of teenagers from Iceland say so.”

                Fishlegs tried to defend himself. “I’m just saying! I wish they had a chance to get to know how good Meatlug is, and what a sweet girl she can be, because who could say no to that face?” He promptly got distracted by scratching a pleased Meatlug under the jaw and suddenly didn’t care that Snotlout was making faces at him.

                Astrid sighed, poking at the fire they’d built t be as smokeless as possible in the emerging daylight. “If it took so long for _Berk_ to accept that the dragons are on their side, I have no idea how long it will take everyone else.”

                Hiccup watched the team’s faces grow despondent. He wanted to reassure them, but didn’t have the words quite yet. Hiccup was sure that they were on to something, though. He refused to admit defeat. An answer _would_ come to him.

 

* * *

 

              

                The answer did. Or rather, it came towards Anchorage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, many apologies for how long this took to write. I actually wrote two chapters, but as mentioned above, the first one was actually an optional scene that is in no way actually canon to Fortune Favors the Brave and so was posted as a separate entry. If you missed the link, it's here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8591290
> 
> I got a little self-indulgent here. Spot the ‘Radio LOCCENT’ reference and/or my thoughts on Fishlegs, Snotlout, and various mental health of the riders.
> 
> If anyone is interested in the timeline -- this occurs right after the inception of the Anchorage Shatterdome. The Beckett brothers haven't been stationed here yet, nor has Marshall Pentecost or Tendo Choi. Knifehead has not happened, and the coastal wall program is only just a glimmer in Dr. Gottlieb-the-Lesser's eye. I realized Reckoner would have attacked Hong Kong at the wrong time of year, and ret-conned it so that the kaiju is a non-canon attack on (spins wheel) San Diego, codename: Ogopogo (Canadian lake monster). Anchorage Shatterdome was established in late November of 2016; its currently spring 2017. 
> 
> One facet of draconic linguistics (is this consistent in previous chapters? It will be) is that the concept of “not-something” is communicated through a prefix. It’s like saying, “I’m not hungry”. Instead of the word “not”, dragons have a conceptual prefix that negates their next word. They still have antonyms, of course, but that’s not relevant in this case.   
> This also applies to the concept of “maybe”. Instead of saying “I may want to go to the store today”, the draconic term is “may-want”.
> 
> If you wanna come shout at me about my Franken-timeline, linguistic adventures, or anything that strikes your fancy, say hello!


	11. Anyway here's Wonderwall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a birthday present to myself, I bring you - well. What you're surely impatient for, in any case. 
> 
> I'll let you know: I'm slow to update because a personal project of mine is taking precedence. I'll be back as soon as I can, but I have a manuscript due in early July that needs to get finished. If you're interested in dragons, gender, and self-indulgent shenanigans along the lines of this fic, try www.tamerlorika.wordpress.com/free-reads

“We interrupt this broadcast to report movement in the breach. Kaiju, code-named Thanos, emerging and headed towards Anchorage, Alaska—.”

The high-pitched kaiju alarm echoed over the radio, startling everyone. Hookfang jerked and flared up in a moment, Fishlegs yelped, and Barf-and-Belch knocked his heads together, casting around for the source of the noise. Only Astrid appeared unsurprised, although a grim sneer covered her features.

Hiccup knew with clarity how the Academy would introduce themselves to the world.

“Alright, team. We’re three hours out of Anchorage—landfall is expected in four. This is our only chance to both protect the city and show the PPDC that we are on their side.”

He was met with shocked silence for about five wingbeats before the group did what they did best—got _loud_.

“Let’s kick some tail!” Tuffnut howled.

“Snotlout, Snotlout, oi oi oi!” agreed Snotlout.

Astrid and Hiccup exchanged a look. They hadn’t exactly drilled for this, for fighting Kaiju without PPDC support.

“Stay out of the Jaeger’s way, no friendly fire,” Astrid cautioned.

Their time was here.

 

* * *

 

 They heard Thanos long before they saw him, because he _screamed_.

Sound travelled fast across the water, driven at speed by a horrific wind. By the time that the jump-hawks and the illuminated eyes of the Jaeger were visible over the south-west horizon, the sound of the kaiju’s roar was drowning out the evacuation sirens.

The Academy hunched over in their saddles, ducking against the wind and the howling rain that had crept up in the last hour.

“Ruff, Tuff, Astrid—I want you flanking the Jaeger, doing your best to distract Thanos. Eyes, throat, soft parts—get in there, get out, give the Jaeger an opening. Snotlout, you and Hookfang need to exacerbate any wounds the Jaeger makes. Dig in deep as you can. Fishlegs, you and Meatlug are the most maneuverable. I want you circling with me, taking advantage, and getting anyone out who is in trouble. But first, I need you one this radio. If you can get into the short-wave communications between pilots and the Shatterdome, I will personally buy you that set of Magic the Gathering cards you’ve been eyeing.”

Fishlegs whooped and said a few words to Meatlug, who buzzed Astrid masterfully as Fishlegs yanked the radio from her hands

Orders given, the dragons picked up their pace and dove toward the battle.

Astrid took point, silent and snarling while Stormfly worked up a terrifying shriek. The ugly beast in the water heard them coming and shifted the gaze of at least one set of eyes to the incoming threat. Although its body did not divert from the death-grip grappling match that it was engaged in with the Jaeger, two extra arms snaked out, double-jointed and insect-like, to wave menacingly at the Riders.

No one wasted any time being shocked at the extra appendages; in fact, the sound Hookfang let out was pure, fierce joy-of-combat. The Kaiju was ugly, and was utterly beyond even the largest dragons they had ever thought. Part squid, part beetle, part spider—it was a chimera of nightmare proportions.

Toothless and Hiccup fell into battle ore grimly, streaking out ahead of the main force and dipping to the side to flank Thanos. Hiccup felt the press and strain of his thighs as he stood in the stirrups as long as he could, while beneath him Toothless fought the centrifugal force of the maneuver. They spun and straightened just in time to avoid a spastic flail of Thanos’ strange arms. On the other side of the Kaiju’s vast bulk, there was the sound of an electrical array powering up.

Hiccup wouldn’t be heard above the storm, but Toothless would, and the Nightfury roared a warning right before the Jaeger fired. The answering pained, enraged howl from Thanos was nearly instant, and its extra limbs swung again, this time to re-engage the Jaeger.

The Riders ducked and dodged expertly, and Stormfly and Astrid, along with the twins and Barf-and-Belch, darted in to worry at the new blast hole. Hiccup felt Toothless vibrate beneath him as he worked up a plasma blast. He cast around, keeping an eye out while Toothless was at his most vulnerable. He took in the circling helicopter spotlights, the bulk of Thanos wailing in pain, and the flashing fragments of the matte-dark Jaeger in the storm.

The dragons were already proving their effectiveness, whirling dizzily around the monster, capitalizing on but never interrupting the Jaeger’s incursions. Hiccup was most worried about the arterial spray from the Kaiju blood. He didn’t want the humans exposed to it, and he had no idea the effects it might have on dragons. He also desperately did not want to find out.

“Hiccup, here!” Fishlegs yelled as Meatlug streaked by. He tossed the radio at Hiccup’s head with surprising accuracy as he flew past, Meatlug gargling a fireball for immediate launching.

<< _Berserker, do you have eyes on the bogey air-support? >>_

<< _We’re a bit distracted, LOCCENT!_ >> a strained female voice returned.

Hiccup’s lip curled up mischievously. << _We do_. >>

There was a heartbeat of silence before LOCCENT returned on the line, roaring. << _Report immediately—who the hell are you and why are you on a secure radio channel?! >>_

The volume was impressive, but Hiccup had been raised by Stoick the Vast. He took a moment t respond as Toothless ducked a wild flail of Thanos’ tentacles, almost petulantly returning fire as Hiccup concentrated on hanging on with his knees.

<< _The Riders, reporting for duty, >> _Hiccup announced, a touch more cheekily than he’d originally meant to. << _And really, you should be asking yourselves how a couple of kids and their dragons managed to tap into your military radio connection._ >>

<<What _did you just say that you had? >> _the Marshall demanded just as another voice, strained with an excitement that verged on giddy, whispered:

<< _Dragons. >>_

Hiccup didn’t have any more time to explain, however, because that was the moment that Thanos decided to get serious.

The kaiju’s appendages, which had appeared smooth until now, were suddenly covered in oozing patches—patches that suctioned onto the flailing Jaeger with a dull “ _thwap_ ,” and would not be moved.

The radio erupted with chatter—warnings, orders—but this was the moment Hiccup had been waiting for. With the vague hope that the others would follow their leads, Hiccup nudged Toothless into a dive towards the enmired Jaeger.

The Jaeger was stuck, but it was strong—and if _it_ couldn’t move, then neither could Thanos. Humming in fierce confidence, Toothless let loose a solid beam of plasma at the Kaiju’s trapped limbs.

Meatlug was the next to catch on, and she vomited a huge stream of lava over the other limb before spinning out of the way of the kaiju’s whirling arms. Soon, the other dragons were darting in and out, taking pot-shots at will.

<<Berserker _, are you gonna light him up? >> _Hiccup goaded into the radio.

<< _We would, if our plasma cannon was working! >> _the female pilot from before snarled. << _It’s damaged! We have wrist-blades, but unless you can get these suction cups off us, they’re not going to do much good. >>_

Hiccup frowned, casting around the scene. The Jaeger really was in bad shape, well and truly trapped, although holding steady in the face of the kaiju. Hiccup touched the back of Toothless’ head, a silent gesture in the roaring battle to ask for his opinion.

 _Arms!_ Toothless howled the order to the other dragons. _Get Hunter’s claws free!_

The Kaiju screamed as the dragons redoubled their efforts—between the fervid struggles of the Jaeger and the concentrated fire of the dragons it was beleaguered, although still holding.

The open-beak scream of the Kaiju gave Hiccup a grim idea. He reached back into the saddle-bags for a canister of Zippleback gas, tapping it gently against the side of Toothless’ head to share his plan.

Toothless’ shoulders tensed and hunched, but he didn’t answer until he’d barrel-rolled out of the way of a wild flail. The twins and Barf-n-Belch raced, screaming in delight, in its wake.

 _Think We can’t make it?_ Hiccup yelled, face close to Toothless’ aural depressions. His tone was half-challenging, but also checking.

As if he didn’t know the answer. Toothless shook himself and barked a scathing noise.

Hiccup had time for one celebratory whoop before Toothless threw the into a freefall nose-dive, straight toward Thanos’ jaws.

Astrid, bless her sharp eyes, saw what was going on, and she and Stormfly turned up the heat to maximum. Thanos screamed in pain and anger—just in time for Hiccup and Toothless to drop through.

“Eat it!” Hiccup crowed, just the wrong side of adrenaline-drunk. He heaved the canister of gas into Thanos’ open maw. Toothless wasn’t much better off, huffing in abject joy before using a plasma blast to blow the canister deep into the monster’s throat.

They almost didn’t get out of the way in time.

The explosion was _overwhelming_. Hiccup would have to do experiments later as to why the conflagration raged so out of control. Instead of the concentrated explosion expected from a single canister of Zippleback gas, the explosion ignited _something_ inside Thanos. As Toothless spun crazily out of the way, fire erupted from the Kaiju’s beak, and fire so strong that it was visible through tissue burned all the way down Thanos’ throat.

Thanos tried to scream, but instead let out a horrific gurgle that vibrated the air hard enough to cause Toothless’ wings to shake. Then, he fell, crashing slowly back towards the black grasp of the writhing ocean.

Victory screams and shouts erupted from the Riders and the dragons—Hiccup heard echoes of joy through the radio speakers as well There was blood rushing in his ears, however, and fuzz creeping into his vision from the G-Forces and the adrenaline crash.

“Bud?” Hiccup asked shakily.

 _We_ , Toothless warbled in assent, voice small and tired but colored in smug happiness.

Toothless coasted to land with an almost-imperceptible stumble on the wide, slick shoulders of the _Berserker_.

One by one, the others followed, thudding onto their makeshift perch in exhausted triumph.

“Another notch on the belt!” Snotlout whooped as if he and Hookfang weren’t both sagging.

Barf-and-Belch skidded as they landed, claws clacking against the smooth aluminum. The twins shouted for no other reason than to make noise as the _Berserker_ wheeled around and began to make its slow, ponderous way to shore.

Hiccup dismounted so that Toothless could roll out the knots in his shoulders. He clinked forearm braces with Astrid as she stalked past, snowboarding sunglasses shoved up on her forehead as she went to help Fishlegs dismount from where he was half-frozen in shock on Meatlug’s back.

<< _We’re coming in with the_ Berserker>> Hiccup warned, switching the radio back into transmission. << _We’ll explain when we get to the Shatterdome_. >>

<< _I’ll be waiting_ >> the Marshall snapped.

Hiccup sighed, surveying his exhausted team perched on shoulders of a giant.

At least they were safe for now. The PPDC wouldn’t fire on its own Jaeger.

Toothless snorted, very likely knowing what Hiccup was thinking:

_Maybe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor notes here: Is someone keeping count for how many direct lines from the movie that I sneak in here? Can anyone else quote the thing from memory or am I the weird one...?
> 
> The dragon word for Jaeger is "Hunter", with the capitol letter actually audible. Dragonese has an emphatic gesture in it that lets you put a word "in caps" in speech.
> 
> I bet you all can guess who our new friends (?) here are...?


	12. Separation Anxiety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand we return, ready to kick some kaiju ass. And probably some human ass. We meet some of the denizens of the Shatterdome and realize that Astrid has a much better handle on things than anyone else. 
> 
> Hello yes my life is a little upended. That might mean you get more of this very fast. Or I die for three months. My various and sincere apologies.

                It might have been inane, but all Hiccup could think was that the Anchorage Shatterdome was _big_.

                The Riders and the dragons had clustered into a haphazard knot across the _Berserker’s_ shoulders, staring around in various stages of sensory overload.

                Lights flashed, machines whirred. Everything was chaos, but a kind separate from battle. This milieu was expertly timed, organized, running endlessly according to rules Hiccup didn’t know and couldn’t fathom.

                He would learn. He had to.

                Astrid bumped shoulders with him as the Jaeger lurched to a stop in the Outer Bay, the lights and thrum of its components dying as the pilots inside disengaged. She hadn’t removed the snowboarder sunglasses she wore to protect her from the magnesium glare of Stormfly’s fir. Hiccup didn’t really blame her. He briefly wished for a set of earplugs.

                “You guys ready?” Hiccup asked his team, taking care to put a hand on Snotlout’s shoulder, since the boy looked pale and was suspiciously quiet.

                A chorus of tired but determined “yeah’s” and Ruffnut’s enthusiastic “Bring it!” greeted him. Hiccup turned to look below at the contingent coming towards them.

                At the head was the Marshall, resplendent in uniform. He was a stocky, broad man, and towered in height over the rest of the contingent. Hiccup had a brief flash of Stoick before them—the Marshall’s bearing and build were strikingly similar. He even had a beard, wild if not long, as if it had once been trimmed to military standards but as of late the Marshall couldn’t be bothered.

                Behind him, various personnel scuttled. Some had the look of soldiers about them; others, LOCCENT staff. As they approached, a pneumatic hiss indicated the descent of the pilot elevator. From his vantage point, Hiccup could not quite make out details, but he could tell the pilots were young. The dark-haired woman looked about Astrid’s age; the redhead man next to her was hardly older, although it was difficult to tell for certain under the heavy scars on the right side of his face.

                As the Jaeger was secured, the immediate bustle of the Shatterdome faded until more people than not were staring at the scene spread across the giant’s shoulders.

                The Marshall stopped far enough away from the Jaeger to be able to squint up at Hiccup without straining his neck. The unimpressed glare was…impressive.

                “What in God and Moses’ name is going on here?” the Marshall demanded.

                “ _Grit your teeth_ ,” Hiccup muttered under his breath in Icelandic, shrugging before swinging onto Toothless’ back.

                “Hiccup!” Astrid hissed, alarmed, but it was too late—Toothless had already glided to the floor to land smartly in front of the assembled crew.

                Everyone, the Marshall included, took a step back, which was slightly amusing, but not conducive to the conversation at hand. The female Jaeger pilot brought up her arm as if to charge up a plasma cannon that she did not currently have. The male just looked dumbfounded—and scarily gleeful.

                “Hey, hey,” Hiccup said placatingly, crouching just slightly and putting out his hands in the same way that he would when facing a nervous dragon. At the same time, he pressed one thigh to Toothless’ flank, a subtle warning for him to stand down. Toothless reluctantly folded his wings but seemed disinclined to move elsewise.

                “You’d best start explaining why you’ve brought five _tiny Kaiju_ into my Shatterdome and when a group of children would turn _species-traitor and—“_

“Congratulations on all of the things you’ve accomplished today!” Hiccup interrupted, straightening. The Marshall and his retinue appeared blindsided. The Marshall blinked, and Hiccup used the opportunity to step closer, putting his hand on the shoulder of one of the near-by techs. “Think about it!” he announced cheerfully. “You defeated a—what, Category Three?—Kaiju! And without a single civilian casualty.”

                Toothless made a distressed noise, not liking how close Hiccup was getting to the unknown entity. Hiccup made a mental note to apologize for giving his partner fits, later.

                “And now,” he said triumphantly, flicking out the Dragon Blade and igniting it to the confusion and fascination of the humans watching, “you have six of the greatest Dragon Riders this side of Reykjavik, ready to fight at your sides against the alien invasion.”

                He abruptly switched off the blade and tossed it to a woman with science officer stripes. She fumbled it, accidentally releasing a puff of gas.

                Hiccup worked himself deeper into the crowd and Toothless, apparently at the limit of his patience, shoulder his way past the mesmerized humans., purposefully stepping on the back of Hiccup’s heel as he did so.

                “See, that blade,” Hiccup continued, “has one end coated in Monstrous Nightmare gel.” He winced as he realized the names of the dragons translated very viscerally into English. “That’s the red dragon up there, by the way–he has fantastic strength and control to boot. The other end of the weapon excretes Zippleback gas. It’s what I used to blow that Kaiju up from the inside. Add a spark to either of those, and—“

                But the tech had already figured it out for herself—a pocket lighter and a soft _boof_ of explosion later left several dazzled onlookers and one visibly excited tech.

                “Weapons made from Kaiju?” she asked eagerly.

                “ _No_.”

                Hiccup’s emphatic decline was friendly but firm. In the silence that had descended to hear his speech, the word echoed.

                “Dragons are _not Kaiju_ ,” he told them all. “Dragos are from earth and, while they are magnificent, they are also our friends.”

                He turned to Toothless behind him and opened his arms. Toothless had clearly had enough of the stress of the whole tumultuous day and didn’t even bother demurring before nuzzling his entire face into Hiccup’s body.

                Hiccup smiled, a small gesture just for him and Toothless. _Yeah, me too_ , he growled under his breath in Dragonese. _But I have to do this, so they understand._

                Toothless made a rude sound and continued nuzzling, which Hiccup was beginning to suspect was also a bit about scent-marking. He sighed—he never minded when Toothless did it, but it seemed that the other dragons looked upon the gesture as overzealous.

                “If a dragon trusts you,” Hiccup raised his voice to the assembled crowd, but couldn’t quite bring himself to break his embrace, “they will be at your side for the rest of your life. These dragons are our friends, our partners, and they—along with us—are ready to defend our planet from those that seek to harm it.” He finally looked up, to find every eye in the building upon him—dragon, Rider, and PPDC. “You’ve seen us in battle. We’re here to join the Jaeger program.”

                There was a beat of silence before the yelling started.

 

* * *

 

 

                “Ye’ve not endeared yerselves to me with that stunt.”

                Marshall Alvin Svikson—although Hiccup had _serious_ doubts that this was his real last name—had managed to pull the Riders out of the crowd with no little difficulty. They’d been pulled into wht seemed to be little more than an empty storeroom—but then again, Hiccup assumed that most structures didn’t have many spaces big enough to house five dragons. The Marshall, to his credit, was standing very close to all of them. His other two staff were fairly plastered against the farthest wall.

                “Our options were sort of limited,” Astrid said bluntly. She was leaning her hip against Stormfly’s flank, the only tell she was going to give that she was exhausted. The other riders were not holding it together so well, but hiccup wasn’t expecting them to. He was getting the creeping sand of burnout scrubbing behind his eyes, but he could feel they were lose to a détente.

                Marshall Svikson grunted, not disagreeing.

                “The truth of the matter, Marshall is that we have a set of skills that would be incredibly useful to your endeavor, and we are prepared to use them. And we think—we _know_ —the Drift technology will only enhance our efficacy.” Hiccup laid their cards on the table. “The Riders and the dragons have proven to be efficient on our own. Now let us show you what we can really do.”

                The Marshall crossed his thick arms in front of his chest, face set in a brooding scowl.

                “No one’s arguin’ that you kicked that bloody Slime a good one. My _problem_ , currently, is that you’re using these same beasts to do it!”

                Hiccup felt his hackles rise, the flush of blood creeping up the back of his neck. Toothless’ presence, the reassuring brush of his tail only made the rage worse. It was a knee-jerk reaction and he _knew_ the response of the Marshall was both expected and even understandable. That didn’t help his protective ire even a whit.

                What did help was Astrid digging her nails into his wrist. Hiccup was immediately disturbed by his own reaction. He consciously relaxed his face from the reflexive snarl.

                Dragons are not beasts, nor are they Kaiju,” Hiccup finally got a hold of himself long enough to say. He heard the discontented murmuring of the Riders in the background, dominated by Fishlegs soothing a completely unoffended Meatlug.

                Alvin scoffed, but before Hiccup could talk himself out of lunging, Astrid had stepped bodily in front of him.

                “Sir, cut the shit.”

                Hiccup heard the twins squeal _ooooh,_ but tuned them out in favor of trying to figure out what in the Hels Astrid thought she was doing.

                The only person in the room who was not completely clocked by the situation seemed to be the Marshall. Not much of his countenance was visible at all behind the beard. Hiccup had gotten used to reading beards in his life, true, but he hadn’t prepared for anything more subtle than abject, righteous _rage._ Instead, the Marshall seemed…unimpressed.

                Hiccup was starting to grudgingly envy his calm.

                “As _trid_ ,” he hissed, but Astrid stepped on his instep. Between her and Toothless, Hiccup was suspicious that they were trying to get rid of his other leg.

                “We all know you’ve been out in the field,” Astrid told the Marshall, matching his posture down to the cocked head and narrow glare. “And three confirmed kills, plus an assist. Impressive statistics.”

                The Marshall grunted. “I know what I’ve done.”

                “So really, you _know_ Kaiju,” Astrid barreled over him. “In fact, I bet you probably know them better than anyone here except your pilots. You know how they move, how they think. Kaiju are driven, they’ve shown no instinct thus far to do anything but destroy and kill. And despite any posturing you’re doing right now, any idiot can see that our dragons are much more than mindless killing machines.” Stormfly, bless her, nuzzled immediately into the palm Astrid held out for her, neatly proving her point. “And, if you look at dragon morphology alone, you’ll notice a few stunning difference!” Fishlegs interrupted from behind him. “Kaiju have chitonous skin cuticles, but no matter what form they’ve taken, not a single one has demonstrated an ability to sustain scales. Dragons resemble ancient dinosaurs much more closely than Kaiju do, further compounding than Kaiju do, further compounding the proof that dragons, unlike Kaiju, are terrestrial.”

                Svikson was scowling now, his passive countenance starting to crumble. “None o’ that’s conclusive,” he argued, glancing back at one of his staff who clearly another K-sci tech. The man nodded quickly, but couldn’t make himself glance away from the perceived threat—in this case, Barf-and-Belch who was trying his best to be friendly and subsequently trying to sidle closer. “The Kaiju evolve fast. This could be a new trick o’ theirs.”

                Fishlegs sniffed, offended. “It _would_ be conclusive if you had any proper biologists on your team,” he muttered. “I’ve been reading the white papers out of Lima. Given what we know about the Kaiju genetic make-up, that level of variance just isn’t probable.”

                Astrid nodded along, satisfied. She held up her fingers, ticking off points. “So one, biological constraints. Two, you’ve been monitoring the breach since it opened—and have you seen _any_ unexplained dilation at any point in which Kaiju could have possibly snuck out?”

                This time, the science tech shook his head, although the action looked a tad under duress, given how Barf-and-Belch was now within striking distance and was clearly sniffing his interesting new friend.

                “And _three_ ,” Astrid concluded, and now Hiccup could hear a sharp edge of steel in her voice, like rope falling away to reveal wire underneath. She ran her hand down Stormfly’s shoulder, murmuring at her a moment before whirling to face Alvin again. “Kaiju don’t bleed red.”

                Stormfly extended her wing on cue, suddenly filling the whole room. The movement of her wing revealed a long, shallow wound, sheeting blood down her flank. Hiccup winced in concern. They hadn’t even had a moment to patch up after Thanos.

                Alvin’s scowl grew deeper and harder, but Hiccup _knew_ this expression was that of a man who was learning something that did not fit with his worldview and was bad-temperedly trying to arrange his brain to accommodate it. Hiccup had seen the look on almost every citizen f Berk at one time or another as they coped with the dragons. The Marshall would not be their first, nor even their most reluctant convert—but he could be the most dangerous if they didn’t snag him _now._

                “Give us the entrance test,” Astrid told the Marshall, just shy of ordering him.

                “Ye should head over to Kodiak and join the Academy,” Marshall Svikson told her weakly.

                “We both know that we’re a little beyond that at this point,” Astrid fired back.

                The Marshall leveled a gimlet stair at every rider in turn, and didn’t blink even when Tuffnut stuck his tongue out or Snotlout tried to bare his teeth. Then he turned sharply on his heel and stalked out of the room.

                Astrid, flummoxed, looked to lunge for him, but this time Hiccup held her back.

                Just outside the warehouse they’d been closed into, the two Jaeger pilots were waiting. The woman looked concerned, but the man was strangely eager.

                “Show them to the empty pilots’ quarters,” Marshal Svikson growled at the pilots, and then he was gone.

                Hiccup looked at Astrid. She had on the same baffled expression he expected he was sporting as well.

                “That worked?” she asked.

                “Holy _shit_ , Astrid,” Ruffnut said, coming up behind her and clapping her on the shoulder. “Consider this your formal invitation to the cult of Loki for the nonsense that you pulled back there.”

                Astrid, now that the pressure was off, appeared a bit dazed. Stormfly bumped her encouragingly, which managed to snap Astrid out of it long enough to ask the female pilot where they could find medical supplies.

                “We can care for the dragons just fine, but I need antiseptic, gauze pads, and hot water,” Astrid told her.

                The pilot looked hesitant. “You can’t really be wandering around here with—“ her eyes flicked to Stormfly, who was chirping absently as they walked, “—them. I’ll get you what you need.”

                “Heather, let me do it!” the other pilot offered, his voice rising to an inexplicable giggle. It reminded Hiccup of nothing so much as the twins openly planning mischief while assuming that no one noticed. Hiccup gave Astrid a look, but she just shrugged; she could handle whatever the guy threw at her. Not that Hiccup doubted it.

                Hiccup let himself be led away, mentally marking the doors where his Riders were quartered. They were arranged down a cold and suspiciously silent hallway—for all that the Shatterdome was teeming with activity, the corridor itself seemed to be holding its breath, still swirling with the eddies of a recently-vacated space.

                He didn’t want the Shatterdome to be afraid of them. It would make his job so much harder.

                Anyway, Toothless was smug enough about their current reputation for the both of them.

                Heather led them to their rooms last, which Hiccup was grateful for. He would never consider himself a natural leader, but he wouldn’t be comfortable until his team was settled.

                The woman stopped him before he could go in.

                “I’ll make sure Dagur doesn’t linger with your friend,” Heather told him seriously.

                Hiccup nodded his thanks. “She can take care of herself, but ‘taking care of herself’ usually involves things that might warrant a court marshal around here.”

                For the very first time since he’d met her, Heather smiled. “My brother does usually require more than _polite_ encouragement to leave off where he’s not wanted.”

                Toothless huffed out a laugh, and Heather startled. She had spent the last few minutes walking as far away from the dragons as the hallway allowed, but had let down her guard when talking to Hiccup and hadn’t noticed Toothless come around behind the both of them. Hiccup had; his partner was a warm, familiar presence at his back.

                “Does it—“ Heather was tense all over again, eyes sliding towards Toothless but not quite turning her head. “ _Understand_ us?”

                Hiccup repressed a sigh, feeling like this was his first year as unofficial dragon ambassador all over again. “ _He_ understands Icelandic, and is passable at English.” Hiccup ignored Toothless’ offended noise. “So yes, he understands everything said in those two languages. He also taught me Dragonese, which is about the only language that dragon tongues can get around, so I have to translate for him.”

                _And is-obvious if you translate bad_ , Toothless reminded him. Hiccup shoved at his snout playfully with one hand.

                “I—oh,” Heather stuttered, looking shocked and possibly a little embarrassed. “I’m…sorry, then—Toothless?” she looked to Hiccup for confirmation but otherwise directed her apology directly at Toothless, which was remarkably fast for a stranger. Hiccup decided that he liked her a lot.

                Toothless gave Hiccup a meaningful look. Hiccup caught it and grinned. He liked this part.

                “Stick out your hand, palm out,” he told her, and, without any more encouragement, she did.

                The look on her face as Toothless briefly pushed his snout into her palm was _wondrous_. Now both he _and_ Toothless were smug—and they had a new ally. For someone who had spent the length of a war fighting creatures that looked like dragons, she was remarkably open-minded.

                She left them soon after that with a promise to escort them to the mess hall when it was open again. Hiccup realized only then that it was almost two A.M., and he wasn’t sure how that had happened. He was also exhausted, and the thunk of the heavy lock sliding shut was one of the most comforting noises he could conjure up at this moment.

                Toothless sighing in relief and curling up to lay down in the middle of the floor superceded even that.

                Hiccup turned to survey the quarters. Never had he thought to be grateful for military austerity before, but it would now serve them well. The only furniture in the room was a Spartan bunk, and a recessed counter and cabinets. A heavy steel footlocker sat at the foot of the bunk, and wool blankets in army green were folded on top, bearing an air of having been there quite a while.

                The floor was concrete, and it was ide and bare and _perfect_ for Toothless to heat with a blast, settling on the scalded patch to warble questioningly at Hiccup.

                All Hiccup wanted was to go to him, sink down next to his partner and go to sleep, but instead he stayed frozen by the door, eyes flicking around the room, but was unable to focus on anything for long. The room was freezing—the Icebox, they called Anchorage. Maybe he was shaking a little.

                With a much put-upon sigh. Toothless levered to his feet once again, stalking right in front of Hiccup to nose at his hip.

                _Tired,_ he whined. _Want sleep, lick wounds_.

                Hiccup managed a laugh. “Its late bud. You _should_ sleep.” His voice turned more earnest. “You were _amazing_ today.”

                Toothless rolled his eyes, pleased, but not done with him yet. _Saddle and bags must-be-off,_ he reminded Hiccup, shaking his shoulder so that he clinked.

                _Sorry, sorry!_ Hiccup yelped, lunging to undo the straps, troubled that it hadn’t occurred to him.

                Toothless just stood patiently, though, letting Hiccup work through their post-flight routine. He didn’t talk or distract Hiccup as he carefully hung the saddle apparatus from the upper bunk, just watching him untangle the lines and oil the hinges. Only after it was done and Hiccup found himself stalk-still, staring at the bare concrete walls, did Toothless come to chivvy him to the warm patch on the floor, bumping him with his snout until Hiccup sat and Toothless could curl around him, which he did after nosing off the light switch in the corner.

                “Oh,” Hiccup said into the dark with a shake of his head.

                Toothless made him an agreeing noise and shut his eyes.

                Hiccup may have been freaking out just a little bit, he realized.

                “We’ve done this before,” he said to Toothless, plaintive. “The Red Queen was _bigger_ than Thanos, and I lost my leg that time. We didn’t even sustain any injuries today! It went fine—more than fine. So why am I—“ he cut himself off, not sure _what_ he was, exactly.

                Toothless let out a noise like a deep purr, causing his chest to vibrate against Hiccup’s back. Hiccup took in a breath, letting it out slowly, then another.

                _Battle is battle_ , Toothless told him. _After Red Queen Hiccup did not worry because Hiccup was not-waking_. Hiccup huffed in response. _After Whispering Death, after Skrill, We-could reach and touch, see injuries. Today, We did not see Stormfly in pain, Stormfly bleeding. We surprised, We scared._

“I wasn’t scared,” Hiccup argued automatically—which was a mistake. Here, alone with Toothless, he did not have to defend himself, to pretend. Here they were We, and Toothless knew it all, anyway. “And I didn’t feel it from  you, either,” he finished lamely.

                _Oh?_ Toothless asked, his tone teasing. _We not-worried, think We not-important? That-is-why We not afraid?_

                Hiccup almost growled in annoyance. Toothless’ point was made, but Hiccup didn’t need to _like_ it.

                “Oh, be quiet you dumb dragon,” he grumbled, shoving at Toothless’ head in a more-or-less useless maneuver, because Toothless didn’t budge.

                _Try it again_ , Toothless warned him, snapping his jaws around air.

                “Fine, I was _worried_ ,” Hiccup emphasized, settling back against Toothless’ bulk with a heavy sigh that seemed to have taken all his energy, if his sudden exhaustion was any indication.

                _Knew it_ , Toothless hummed smugly.

                Hiccup curled tighter, put his face down in the soft hollow behind Toothless’ jaw bone. _Not-worried now, We here._ He sighed. _Thank you._

                Toothless huffed ungraciously, which made Hiccup smile.

                _We,_ he agreed, and the meaning of it, the promise, warmed Hiccup through. They were Drift partners now, Hiccup knew it in his heart. He just sometimes needed help encouraging his brain to catch up.


	13. Social Bonding via Sheep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Snoggletog, everyone. The Eggs Explode.
> 
> I'll be real, this year was a fucking garbage fire, not just in the general sense but also in a personal one. You all made this year worthwhile, though. I wanted to have a chapter that was a little longer for y'all to reward your patience but...that also meant it took longer to write...also I thought i had posted this last night but GUESS NOT. 
> 
> Now back to my annual re-watch of Gift of the Night Fury, and my general reminder that just because Hiccup is the one that normally causes the trouble, doesn't mean that Astrid will EVER be able to live down accidentally blowing up all of Berk.

It was neat, Hiccup thought, having an intercom wired into the pilot quarters. Except, of course, at 0600 when Marshal Svikson’s voice rang stridently through their quarters.

                “Rookies, report to Bay 08 by 0700 hours,” the Marshal grumbled over the speakers at an unforgivable decibel.

                Hiccup shot awake all at once, then the ground beneath him jerked as Toothless did the same, trying to stand before realizing Hiccup was still curled against him. They both ended up sprawling onto a cold corner of the floor in a disgruntled tangle. Hiccup found himself with his face mashed into Toothless’ ankle, the dragon’s tail pinned underneath his hip.

                “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Hiccup said drily. Toothless jerked his tail, flipping it out from under Hiccup and dumping him onto his back. He let out a dramatic groan, which garnered him zero sympathy.

                Hiccup levered to stand, annoyed at himself for not taking off his leg the night before—the strap itched and one of the buckles was digging into his skin—when a banging came at the door.

                It was Heather, who politely ignored Hiccup’s faint hobble as well as the current state of his hair.

                “Dining hall,” she said succinctly, making Hiccup think that, despite the pristine tightness of her regulation hair bun and the crisp lines of what passed for BDU’s, she was just as much in need of tea as he was. 

                That could come later, though. “Toothless needs to hunt,” Hiccup told her, retreating back into the room to grab the saddle.

                She nodded. “Of course. The other…the others of Toothless’ …kind. Have gone out already. The humans are already eating. Is….is it normal, how much the two skinny ones eat?”

                Behind Hiccup, Toothless made an amused noise.

                “Normal? Sure,” Hiccup conceded. “Horrifying? Also yes.”

                Heather did not so much make a face as adopt a single, perfect second of full-body disgust before catching herself. “…right. So I will show Toothless the way out so that he can hunt, and then I’ll show you the mess hall.”

                Depending on his mood—how tired he was, how thoroughly he had been taken off-guard, Hiccup could navigate this part of the conversation with aplomb and charm. He and Toothless had perfected the punchline—“ _But he got me back! Couldn’t save all of me, could ya, bud?”—_ after years of repetition and explanations in Icelandic, English, and on one notable occasion, Dragonese. Most of the dragons did not much care in the first place, but the Raincutter in question had a similar tail-fin injury and had been incredibly curious for how own sake.

                Familiarity aside, however, the brief stab of guilt, of memory, could never quit be deflected when Hiccup had to explain why Toothless couldn’t fly alone.

                _Because it is not-right, to fly alone_ , Toothless interrupted now, before Hiccup could scramble for a response for Heather. _Because We chose this_. He made sure that he locked eyes with Hiccup, a gesture that was about attention and intention with humans, and was all threat in dragon body language. In some ways, Hiccup knew Toothless had meant both interpretations. _We chose We_.

                One Snoggletog, many years ago. Hiccup had given Toothless his freedom to take the air once again on his own power. Toothless had accepted the atonement for one terrible, relieving day, and then came bounding back to Hiccup with nothing but love and determination that the apology be _thoroughly destroyed._

                The bone-deep sense of peace that Toothless’ decision brought about was rigorously questioned anyway, because Hiccup never had learned to let things lie.

                _Just_ tired enough to be having this conversation. Hiccup protested back in Icelandic. “Our turnabout-is-fair-play joke isn’t really equitable, is it?” he asked, bouncing his leg for emphasis. “I can get around fine on this. But you have…” Hiccup held up the tangled wires and straps of the harness.

                Toothless didn’t even blink. _Hiccup cannot fly without We either_.

                Hiccup did blink. Then blinked again. No retort, snarky or otherwise, came to mind.

                “You’ve been saving that,” Hiccup accused Toothless in English.

                Toothless licked at his claws, going for unaffected.

                A somewhat-subtle shuffling sound came from the direction of the door, and Hiccup remembered that Heather was not only _there_ , but also definitely had no idea what was going on.

                “Where he goes, I go,” Hiccup said simply, getting to work on fastening the saddle. “Tell Astrid to save me some breakfast.”

                This certainly did nothing to assuage Heather’s curiosity, and she eyes him with bemusement.

                “…right. Happy fishing, then.”

                Neither Hiccup or Toothless offered that Toothless would likely have better luck hunting the masses of seabirds they’d seen swarming the Dome and its environs, rather than trying their luck in cold, overfished, and Kaiju-stressed waters. Strangely, most humans seemed to react badly to the suggestion that seagulls were on the menu. Hiccup wasn’t entirely certain where the sympathy came from, since most people would consider them flying pests on any other day. They weren’t Toothless’ favorites, but they would be easy. At least Stormfly would be delighted.

                With a final tug of the straps, Hiccup secured the harness and swung up onto Toothless’ back. It might have been better for their image, their impressions among the skittish humans, for Toothless to instead walk at his side through the Shatterdome. Hiccup didn’t care. He wanted them, all of them, to see him and Toothless the way they were when they were at their best in the sky.

                Today, after all, was the Drift Trials.

 

* * *

 

 When Hiccup and Toothless returned with the other dragons—because time for most of them was a muddy concept at best, and Hiccup was only barely more conscious of it due to the watch he had built into Toothless’ saddle—they were just under the Marshal’s hour time limit and everyone besides Meatlug stank slightly of scorched feathers.

 Hiccup slid into the Kwoon in Bay 08, sidling up behind Astrid, who palmed him a sausage and toast sandwich and then handed over her own thermos of tea. Hiccup bussed her temple in gratitude and devoured his food before he could get in trouble for some kind of martial disrespect.

  _I offered you some-of-mine_ , the Barf head said plaintively, the Belch head nodding along. _Humans can-eat burned bird. I know this._

There were many ways to say “to burn” in Dragonese, and none for “to cook”. This, in itself, also indicated the state of the bird that Barf-and-Belch had offered Hiccup.

“Not these birds,” Hiccup tried to explain with his mouth full. Then he amended himself. “Or rather, not in that state.”

 Hiccup was saved from having to explain further by the entrance of the Marshal and the pilots.

“I don’t think I have to explain to ye what the purpose o’ this test is,” the Marshal growled without preamble, even more sour than he had appeared the night before. Maybe he wasn’t unaffected by the lack of sleep, after all. “But first, we’re gonna give ye all a demo of what proper partners look like.”

Hiccup knew immediately that Fishlegs wouldn’t be able to help himself.

“Although armed combat sparring is the military-approved method of testing physical and mental compatibility, there are other scientifically-approved methods of demonstration—“

“—like ballroom dancing!” Ruffnut chimed in.

“—as well as psychological evaluation that must be undergone. Therefore, it’s not entirely accurate to imply that this demonstration is the only indicator of true-drift compatibility.” Fishlegs finished gamely.

Hiccup merely shrugged when the Marshal glared at _him_ and not Fishlegs. The man was right, after all.

“…. _Rangers_ , ready?” the Marshal said pointedly after a long, long moment.

“ _…okay fine_ …” Fishlegs muttered.

Heather and Dagur, barefoot and in regulation grey sweatpants, stepped out onto the mats in the middle of the Kwoon. They each had their short-staffs in their hands, Heather’s at regulation sheathed position and Dagur’s dangling casually from his fingers. They both slid smoothly into what looked like a lunge, and when the Marshal barked “ _Begin!_ ”, they both surged forward at full strength.

Hiccup had to admit that it was terribly impressive. Dagur and Heather handled their weapons expertly, but with vastly different styles. Dagur whipped his staff with easy efficiency, whirling in under and around Heather’s strikes, hopping about and ginning madly as they circled each other.

Heather, on the other hand, strode into battle like a woman possessed. She was fast, but more than that, she was strong, and she struck with incredible power in places that would absolutely have killed Dagur had they landed. Her precision and ruthlessness was clearly noted by Astrid, who watched the proceedings with unguarded approval.

 What prevented the match from turning into a bloodbath, as it could have so easily, was how completely in sync the pilots were. It was an incredible sight. Every time Heather went for Dagur’s temple or trachea, or Dagur struck a spinning blow to her face or arms, the other would parry at the last possible moment and the dance would go on. Hiccup heard Fishlegs heave a gasp at ever near-miss, and was somewhat afraid that he would pass out from the anxiety of it all. Snotlout looked almost as tense, and was clutching Tuffnut’s hand as both he and Ruffnut leaned forward to cheer on the combatants with increasingly bloodthirsty glee.

“Yeah, knock his head off--!”

“Break her arm, I bet you can--!”

 _Eat his entrails_! came a dragon screech, and Hiccup turned to see Stormfly with her wings half-spread in excitement. When she noticed his regard, she whistled an apologetic noise and shuffled her talons in embarrassment, but her gimlet gaze toward Dagur was unwavering. Hiccup saw Astrid pat her neck approvingly and decided that he didn’t want to know, unless Astrid needed help. He was pretty certain that she didn’t.

“Halt!” the Marshal finally shouted, which was apparently the signal to try to throw one more dirty blow. The pilots ended up nose to nose, grimacing and breathing heavily, their staves crossed between them. Alvin stared hard at both of them but didn’t call them out. He simply huffed and turned to face the assembled riders.

“So now you see how it should be. Who’s first?” he demanded.

Hiccup and Astrid exchanged a look.

“Oh, _no_ ,” Astrid spoke before Hiccup could stop her. She cut a glance to Stormfly, who fullfed her wings anxiously as she picked up on the sudden tension. “There is no way.”

 _“Excuse_ me, recruit?” the Marshal roared.

Hiccup stepped in fast, Toothless sidling up to his shoulder. “Sir, what she _means_ —“

“ _Is fuck no I’m not going after my girl with a_ pole _,”_ Astrid hissed, not quite _sotto voce_ , from behind him.

 “—Is that the fight would hardly be fair, or a good test of compatibility,” Hiccup finished loudly. He caught Fishlegs looking at him with a pleading sort of expression, and Hiccup _finally_ got the point of his earlier outburst.

“You are PPDC recruits now, but if you disobey a direct order again you will _not_ be for much longer,” the Marshal continued yelling.

Hiccup squared his shoulders, preparing to wait out the volume a bit. “Sir,” he reasoned. “What you need is a demonstration of how attuned we are in battle. For dragons, big sticks aren’t exactly ideal.”

\“But ballroom dancing is!” crowed Ruffnut, and Astrid almost put her in a headlock, but Tuffnut got there first—mostly because he _could_.

 “…and neither is ballroom dancing,” Hiccup inserted hastily. “Fortunately, sir, we have a solution.”

No yelling this time, just an expectant narrowing of eyes, which was…probably a good sign? Hiccup grinned as disarmingly as he could muster.

“We call it Dragon Racing.”

* * *

 

They cleared one of the unused Jaeger bays of extraneous scaffolding, and Hiccup spent a moment being impressed by the efficiency of the military.

It felt as though all non-essential personnel in the Shatterdome were gathered, some to see what the dragons would do, some to see the dragons at all. They’d gotten more than a few suspicious or alarmed glances, and even openly hostile ones, but Hiccup had hoped that this display would help mitigate some of that.

“The rules are easy,” Hiccup announced, addressing the Marshal but pitching his voice for the crowd. “The first t five points wins. Back home, we play with sheep. However, in the noted absence of those, we have some willing volunteers.”

“Too right!” Ruffnut yelled, bounding up behind him positively _covered_ in cotton balls. They were stuck to her clothes, her hair, her face, woven into her hair—Hiccup had no _idea_ when or how she had managed that, but he also didn’t want to.

“One—uh, sheep—in any pair’s basket is one point,” Hiccup recovered, gesturing at the row of industrial-sized dumpsters that had been arrayed in the center of the bay. “The sheep have a ten-second head start to get out again before the game is on again. No blood, no excessive force.” The last was directed back in the riders’ directions. “Let’s race!”

Hiccup leapt onto Toothless’ back, and the dragon gifted Hiccup with a silly smile. Hiccup couldn’t help but grin back and knuckle Toothless behind one earflap. They all needed this—not just the riders, but _everyone_ in the Shatterdome, at the front lines of an impossible war. They needed to have fun and blow off steam and maybe, just maybe, they’d be getting a little more social capital out of it.

Marshal Svikson stood on the edge of a catwalk overlooking the bay, expression sour. He just about jumped out of his skin when a single fog-horn blast of the klaxon rang out and the clock—not _the_ War Clock, but a digital analogue for this part of the dome—set itself for an hour and started counting down. Snotlout whooped and pointed; Hiccup hoped he hadn’t just contributed to the court-martial of some LOCCENT tech.

Another klaxon blast later, however, and the game was on.

The twins started out on Barf-and-Blech, more to get a head start and cause a little bit of chaos than anything. They’d clearly been _practicing_ , too, because suddenly Barf-and-Belch was looping up and over all the other riders in a surprising display of coordinated acrobatics. Stormfly, who had pulled out ahead of the pack almost immediately, shrieked her frustration and displeasure at being out-maneuvered. Astrid patted her as she twisted her head to keep a gimlet eye on the dragon that had ended up looping to the end of the pack.

Hiccup stood in his stirrups to look as well, as Toothless arced in a wide, banking turn. It was as he had expected—Barf-and-Belch was devoid of passengers, looking almost more befuddled than anyone in the crowd.

“Eyes on?” Hiccup asked Toothless, who briefly used his snout to indicate a commotion on one of the lower viewing scaffolds. Sure enough, one blonde head of hair stood out, squirming enticingly through the crowd, bumping and shoving people out of the way.

Hiccup let them be for the moment, hoping no one— _Snotlout_ —was foolhardy enough to dive into a crowd of people they were actively trying to ingratiate themselves with. Instead, he cast around the Jaeger bay for the other twin. It wasn’t all that hard.

“ _Eat nut!”_

With that truly inspired catchphrase, Tuffnut revealed himself to be crouched behind an overturned workbench with handful of discarded nuts and bolts and, somehow, a slingshot. He fired a small projectile every time one of the hovering dragons got too close, and his aim was scarily good. Stormfly, knowing she wasn’t allowed to flame during the game, tried to angle in, but Tuffnut winged a screw toward her belly. Stormfly rolled her eyes, but flinched when it hit and backed off. Hookfang, meanwhile, was absolutely refusing to even try to get close, not in any way interested in even the facsimile of danger.

However, as Hiccup and Toothless watched, an entirely unconcerned Meatlug dipped in, catching the projectiles in her mouth like popcorn. Delicately, she plucked up a screaming Tuffnut and just as daintily deposited him in the dumpster that had been spray painted orange and green.

The crowd roared in delight as Tuffnut stumbled upright, bowed shakily, and clambered out of the dumpster. He tripped and was briefly face-down on the concrete, but then was up and away before his ten-second head start had elapsed.

Meanwhile, Astrid had flipped on her sports glasses. Toothless made a sound that translated to _uh-oh_. Astrid wasn’t about to let anyone one-up her for long, especially with people watching.

That, of course, meant diving _directly_ for the crowd. The Dome denizens scattered, but their shrieks were delighted, and Hiccup was remined that the people who worked for the PPDC had to be at least a _little_ bit insane to be working here.

The move paid off as Stormfly rose out of the crowd with Ruffnut clutched in her claws. Snotlout made an aborted attempt to snatch her away, but Hookfang pulled up just before he would have collided with Stormfly. Stormfly _hrrk_ ed a smug chuckle at her superior skills at playing aerial chicken. Still, the display of aerobatics that it took for Hookfang to dodge out of the way wowed the audience, who cheered for the Nightmare, and then cheered again when Astrid scored her point.

Hiccup cackled as Toothless picked up his own speed, getting into the energy of the game. It was time to really play.

The next half hour was a tight barrage of swooping, diving acrobatics and the twins causing as much chaos as possible. They scaled equipment, jumped on and off of Barf-and-Belch, and hammed it up for a crowd that had bought it hook, line, and sinker.

The score was pretty well set—Snotlout and Hookfang and Fishlegs and Meatlug both had one point apiece; Hiccup and Toothless were tied with Astrid and Stormfly with two.

As expected, Tuffnut was imbued with a keen sense of dramatic timing. Snagging Ruffnut’s arm, he dragged her over to an industrial tub of graphite lube. Ruffnut needed no further encouragement, dipping in and out of it as Tuffnut called:

“ _Launching the Black Sheep_!”

Taking their cute, Barf-and-Belch plucked Ruffnut into the air by one foot and she stuck her tongue out at everyone as she went.

The chase was _on_. It took the dragons almost a full loop to catch up with Barf-and-Belch; Toothless huffed his annoyance at having been the furthest away to start.

“Gotta _earn_ that win,” Hiccup teased him. Toothless grunted and flew faster.

Eventually, they were almost all neck-and-neck. Even Meatlug was managing to keep up with the pack, even though she was starting to flag. On her back, Fishlegs was messing with some object in his hands. He twisted it, and Hiccup saw the glint of light. The next moment, Barf-and-Belch’s Barf head was yelping as if stung. Fishlegs had used a mirror to distract Barf-and-Belch just enough that they dropped Ruffnut completely. Hiccup let out a whistle, impressed. Then he laughed out loud when Meatlug nipped in to grab Ruffnut out of the air by one arm—and Hookfang managed to snag her by the other.

Ruffnut sailed through the air, resplendent in graphite and escorted by a posing Snotlout and Fishlegs. However, that lasted all of thirty seconds, until three things happened in quick succession:

First, the catwalk on which the Marshal was stationed loomed directly in the path of the racing dragons. It was the only structure that spanned the bay, hanging right out over the middle. They’d managed to avoid flying into it on every lap thus far. This time, however, all five—Hookfang and Snotlout, Fishlegs and Meatlug, and a suddenly-panicking Ruffnut—were on a direct collision course, and the distance was closing fast.

Second, the graphite lube was finally doing its job. As Meatlug and Hookfang hurriedly tried to pull up over the catwalk, their grips loosened, and Ruffnut slid right out of their claws.

Third, Astrid, who had been watching all this unfold and clearly biding her time, urged Stormfly into the lead with a few murmured words. As they reached the catwalk, Stormfly dove under—and Astrid leapt forward. She hit the catwalk with a roll, then found her feet in just enough time to catch Ruffnut as she fell. Instead of fighting the stumble or the forward momentum, Astrid flung herself into it, rushing right past the Marshal’s chair before hurling herself and Ruffnut over the railing and onto Stormfly’s back.

The crowd lost their _minds_. Hiccup and Toothless pulled up to watch the madness unfold. Stormfly floated down lazily to tumble a somewhat shell-shocked Ruffnut into the dumpster, securing the points and the game everyone watching was screaming and whooping, the noise of a populace with their blood up and on fire. Fishlegs and Snotlout were blinking bewilderedly at each other, then down at Stormfly and Astrid. Astrid had encouraged the both of them into a victory lap, leaning almost entirely sideways out of the saddle to slap hands and bump fists. Tuffnut had run to peer into the dumpster, where Hiccup could catch a glimpse of the besmirched Ruffnut cackling and cheering along with the crowd.

The Marshal, presiding above it all, surveyed the bay with a serious reserve that Hiccup did not dare interpret. He looked angry in the same unfocused, general way that Stock always did, and Hiccup had no idea if the discontent was just as harmless in this situation, on this man.

The Marshal recognized Hiccup’s regard and met his stare, pointing toward one of the exits of the Jaeger bay in a clear order to meet him outside. Toothless flicked his gaze back at Hiccup, who shrugged. At least, whatever the decision, they would face it together.

As Toothless banked left to exit their makeshift arena, the other dragons caught on that something had changed and, one by one, followed Toothless’ lead. By the time they made it out of the bay into a service hallway that was more-or-less deserted, Toothless and Hiccup were flanked by the Riders and the dragons at their backs, as serious as they would ever be.

The Marshal, to his credit, sauntered in without pause, even as he faced down a phalanx of creatures that towered over him in trepidation. He stopped in front of Hiccup, seeming to ignore Toothless at his back, wings up and shoulders tense.

“Ye really think y’can Drift with these things, these…dragons?” the Marshal corrected himself, which surprised Hiccup enough not to reply immediately. However, when he did, it was with deliberate firmness, conviction ringing through each syllable.

 “These dragons are our closest partners and our best friends. I will _never_ be more compatible with another human in the Drift than I would be with Toothless, and there is no one else on earth that I or my Riders would want watching our backs. We helped bring down Thanos just as we are. In the Drift, we could be unstoppable.”

“Ye say that as if it’s not somethin’ to fear.”

Hiccup did not reply, and he did not break Alvin’s stare. When the Marshal made his pronouncement, it was with their gazes locked together, green to darkest blue.

“Get them into a PONS.”


	14. Forbidden Friendship (Reprise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday to ME, I got to write The Chapter. This was the entire reason I started writing FFTB some ungodly amount of years ago--getting to see this. Bless you all for sticking with me as life made this road a lot bumpier than I thought. Wind beneath my wings and all that. There is a lot more to go here, but you've been so great and I wanted to make sure you knew that. 
> 
> Pros of spending my birthday abroad: Too Much Food, time in coffee shops to bang out this chapter (and a new HTTYD surprise that got Very Big and is taking me Longer than Expected to put up, womp womp)  
> Cons of spending my birthday abroad: Haven't been outside of a Transport Conveyance or Transport Station in 48 hours, have no idea what time, day, or country this is, need to sleep for 2 weeks.

 

INTERLUDE: Snotlout and Tuffnut

                Of _course_ Hiccup and his partner were going first, and of course he had taken Astrid aside to talk about whatever leader-y things they needed to prepare. Snotlout didn’t care. They could  do whatever they wanted while the rest of K-Sci got to work finding some kind of PONS apparatus that might fit a Nightfury. Snotlout was just happy to have a few hours' peace.

                Hookfang and a few of the others had gone off to hunt again after their game and Snotlout was bored of sitting in his quarters. But this was a _military base_ —surely someone was up to something cool.

                He started by trying to find his way back to the Mess Hall—hey, Hookfang wasn’t the only one who was hungry—but the hall must have _moved_ because he was sure he made all the right turns but found himself in an abandoned office instead. The next try got him to a gender-neutral locker room; the third, the med bay. By this time, he was getting looks from _everyone_ as he passed, and he was really not a fan. It was probably time to cut his losses and head back to his quarters—if he could find them.

                And no, asking for directions was not an option. First, that would have meant talking to any of the people in the halls, and he was pretty sure none of them spoke Icelandic. Second, no one seemed particularly friendly, even considering how excited they had been over the game. Snotlout had grown used to holding his head high on Berk in the face of the open hostility to dragons. He knew Hookfang better than anyone, and knew he was worth defending.

                But Berk was small, and he understood how it worked and what people were saying about him, and he could get on Hookfang’s back and _run_ if he needed to—and none of that was the case here, not at all.

                Out of sudden desperation, Snotlout ducked through the nearest open door, so he could take a moment to get his bearings. When he bothered to look around, he found himself in what looked to be a mechanical storage room.

                The warehouse-like structure was half the size of a football pitch, and lined with neat racks of plating, gears, steel girders, and even more that he couldn’t recognize. The floor was cold concrete, and for some reason that more than anything reminded him of Gobber’s garage back on Berk. This room, however, was much neater. The parts had less Gronkle-bites taken out of them, too.

                The only part of the storage-room that wasn’t neat, in fact, was an incongruous nest of sheeting and additional pylons in the middle of the room. The structure was huge, twice Snotlout’s height, and seemed to be held together mostly by spit and hope. Even as he watched, a small screw jogged loose and rolled off some height, bouncing off piping and fittings on its way to the ground.

                “What the—” Snotlout began, stalking closer to get a better look.

                “Hey hey hey hey hey--!” From somewhere in the conglomeration came a familiar babble, and then Tuffnut rushed into sight, waving his arms. “ _Don’t move!_ ” he shouted, eyes wide.

                Snotlout froze mid-step, wobbled, then caught himself on an exposed pipe. The pipe, however, was connected to something loadbearing, and the whole structure wobbled ominously.

                “Ah!” Tuffnut yelped.

                “ _Ah_!” Snotlout yelped even louder.

                They both sprang towards a dishwasher-sized piece of siding, bracing it before it could crash off the pile. With much grunting and heaving, they slowly shoved it into a more stable position. Snotlout tried to pretend that the effort hadn’t made him sweat. Tuffnut gave him a one-over that indicated that he wasn’t fooling anyone.

                “Well, you might as well come in,” Tuffnut offered flippantly, spinning on his heel to disappear around the bulk of the pile. Brain still a beat behind, Snotlout scrambled to follow, just catching a glimpse of Tuffnut on his hands and knees crawling into the structure like it was a warren.

                It looked like the worst idea ever. But it was a damn sight better than being lost and alone in the Icebox. Snotlout wriggled in after him.

                Tuffnut’s…lair?...was surprisingly spacious. There was just enough room to stand up inside, at least for Snotlout—Tuffnut’s scalp brushed the roof, making the structure creak as he moved. The interior was probably as wide and as deep as two military bunks laid end-to-end.

                “Welcome to…the Nut-Cave,” Tuffnut said, gesturing expansively and knocking several small screws off the wall.

                “You built all of this yourself?” Snotlout asked, sitting on a pile of oil-stained rags that had been shoved into the corner like a dragon-shredded beanbag.

                “Hel yeah I did,” Tuffnut bragged, “Ruffnut thought she could get some of the techs to show her how the plasma-cannons worked, so she ran off.”

                Snotlout stopped his attention from ping-ponging between admiring the chaos of the structure and flinching every time it made a noise, and instead focused on Tuffnut for a second. He wasn’t used to Tuffnut-alone. He was always babbling to _someone_ —Ruffnut, his dragon, other peoples’ dragons, his stupid pet chicken with the stupid beady eyes and stupid pointy beak. But now he was just standing in the corner of a glorified pile of junk, shifting from foot-to-foot and _quiet_.

                Snotlout hated quiet.

                “Well, you’ve got to sit down and _enjoy_ this monstrosity that you made,” Snotlout groused.

                Tuffnut’s smile was beatific—or would have been, if Snotlout didn’t know him so well. “It _is_ a monstrosity, isn’t it?” he said proudly.

                Snotlout ran an appraising eye over the gleaming walls. “This is the perfect place to plot in,”

                “To plan!” agreed Tuffnut.

                “To scheme.”

                “To collude!”

                “To…uh, conspire?”

                “To bamboozle.”

                “Uh huh,” Snotlout mumbled. Tuffnut could probably go on for hours—and had, with the proper motivation. “It just needs one more thing.”

                “And that is?”

                “Curtains,” Snotlout said firmly.

                Tuffnut’s slow smile was much less innocent this time. “Hook me up, Snot-man.”

                Snotlout smirked. He’d ended the day in pretty good circumstances after all—a new lair, a new project, and a lot of shenanigans were in his future.

 

* * *

           

 Hiccup rolled to his toes, flexing his prosthetic underneath him, and waited. The heat and heaviness of the PONS tiara trailing titanium tentacles was uncomfortable, but not compared to the sensation of feeling completely alone.

                He tilted his head as much as the PONS would allow, just able to catch a glimpse of Toothless, who shifted uneasily next to him but just out of reach. Two of the techs twittering in excitement still hovered around Toothless, connecting various wires and screwing who sections apart and together again. Hiccup tried not to worry about the modifications they had to commit in order to make a set-up that would rest against the proper sections of Toothless’ skull—after all, he’d done most of the calibrations for it himself. Hiccup had also told K-Sci confidently that the parts of a dragon brain were nearly identically placed as compared to reptiles, if only to curb even the thought of further research into dragon anatomy. Toothless had only shrugged at the deception.

                _Could be_ , was the most encouraging agreement that he’d been able to offer Hiccup.

                Now, however, about to be closer to his partner than should ever be possible, they weren’t allowed the simple comfort of touch.

                “You’re tugging at the wires too much,” one of the techs told him, not unkindly, popping her gum as she attached a baffling piece of blinking machinery to something on his head. “And besides, you definitely can’t touch during a first drift. Even experience pilots try not to! The sensation feedback is _way_ too strong—you won’t just _chase_ the R.A.B.I.T, you’ll fall down a cliff after it.”

                _We are-not afraid of falling,_ Hiccup clicked for Toothless’ ears alone.

                Of course, Toothless wasn’t the only one _listening._ Marshal Svikson brooded in the far corner of the simulator pod, glaring at everyone and making Hiccup wonder if he needed a smoke, a nap, or maybe a hit of dragon-nip.

                Astrid and Stormfly hovered just at the entrance of the pod, unable to fit inside but too stubborn to wait anywhere else. Stormfly was shuffling nervously with all of the activity, which set all the techs on edge—but Hiccup was proud of her. She stood her ground, understanding that if this went well, it would be her turn next.

                The sensors were clipped around Hiccup’s head, a glove fitted to his wrist to measure fine motor control. The techs had mimicked the setup on the fins of Toothless’ tail. The sim wasn’t meant to control a jaeger—it was meant to measure if the Drift synced partners enough to be _able_ to control the jaeger. Matching head movement, brain wave variance, pupil dilation, and motor control all gave J-Tech some idea of whether the paired pilots could do more than make the rig light up.

                Hiccup knew that the calibration that was being done now was a wild guess. The data from this sim would come to mean nothing to analysts, not with an entity as opaque as a dragon as the ‘x’ value.

                That didn’t matter, though. He and Toothless would demonstrate what it was to be Drift Compatible with a dragon. They’d show the Marshal just who they were together.

                GLaDOS—Hiccup couldn’t help but snort, having played through Portal at least twice one summer—chimed in suddenly, and he realized that he’d been fairly zoned out. The techs were scrambling out of the pod, and the Marshal, Astrid, and Stormfly were already in the viewing window outside.

                “ _Sequence: Initiating_.”

                Machines dialed up with a turbine whir. Toothless flexed his tail, aborting his own initial flight response.

                _“Ten…nine…”_

“Close your eyes, bud,” Hiccup breathed. He couldn’t check if Toothless had, his headpiece locked rigidly until the launch sequence concluded.

                “… _six…five…”_

“Easy.”

                _Easy…_ agreed Toothless, warbling sardonically.

                “ _…two…”_

                “You and me,” Hiccup promised him. “As one.”

                _“One_.”

                The dropped into the Drift.

 

* * *

 

                Perhaps other pilots saw it differently, but for Hiccup, the concept of the ‘drop’ was more accurate than he had ever thought. There was a moment of total freefall. Hiccup was not standing on solid ground anymore, his body gone, his voice gone, his thoughts a blue rush of void. Then, as quickly as the fall came, was the violent jerk of impact, and suddenly Hiccup was not Hiccup anymore.

                _WE_.

                How many times had they said the word with the conviction of knowing it to be true? How long had their concepts of one another been bound up in this identity that was not new but was instead _more?_

And yet, all their cunning knowledge could not compare to the final certainty of it. They were unmoored, clinging only to each other as their understanding shifted and came undone, the world brightening and spinning with context that had always-and-yet-never been. The sight of the door ahead of them became at once **_escape_** and **_obstacle_** , **_too large_** and **_too small_** , the walls a **_constant cage_** , their heartbeats **_imperative_ ** and **_aware_**.

                “You’re chasing the R.A.B.I.T, ranger!” came the voice of **_authority_** and **_prey_. **

**“** Hiccup,” warned **_sister_ ** and **_wing-flank_**.

                But they weren’t chasing. They were flying.

                A lifetime of images superimposed over each other. One’s lean winter-hollowed stomach was filled by the memory of the hot flesh of a beached whale. Nights spent cold and surrounded by nests without nest-mates reverberated suddenly with rafter-shaking snores. An entire life was Known, not just seen but understood.

                **_Fear pain falling_**

**_Triumph guilt terror_ **

**_Gutting anticipation_ **

**_Curiosity_ **

**_Lurching unready heart_ **

**_Two touching for the first time, snout-to-palm_ , _nerves aching and alight_.**

That moment when two who were separate merged, so banally and briefly and yet for the first time nevertheless, hit with a steady familiarity as memories, just this once, had no need to speak over each other. Gently, Hiccup opened the eyes of Hiccup’s body. His leg shifted. He heard the creak of Toothless’ weight shifting with him.

                “Are you alright?” Astrid ( ** _sister, wing-mate_** ) demanded over the intercom.

                Hiccup found himself shaking out his neck, his shoulders, the motion not doing much to relax him even as he felt tension leave his frame.  
                ”Yeah,” he called faintly. “We are.”

                “If you’re _quite finished_ , Ranger?” Marshal Svikson broke in sarcastically. He may have been trying to get Hiccup’s attention for a while.

                He was going to have to wait for a moment longer.

                Hiccup found his headpiece had loosened up now that the Drift had settled, and his range of motion had returned somewhat. He shifted in his harness, turning towards Toothless.  His partner looked just as overwhelmed as he felt himself, and just as determined.

                Hiccup raised his voice.

                “We aren’t getting into a conn-pod to defeat the kaiju. We won’t jockey. We’re flying together.”

                One of the techs caught his intention first and yelled before anyone else could. “Don’t! The feedback is—”

                “Ranger, this is an order—”

                It couldn’t be an order if the Marshal never finished saying it. Hiccup’s grin was involuntary, so wide that it hurt.

                The hand not covered in the sensor glove was on the side nearest Toothless. Hiccup didn’t look, just thrust it out, palm outward, waiting.

                They shared a snort of amusement before Toothless slowly, delicately pressed his ( ** _their, our_** ) snout to Hiccup’s skin.

                Their vision whited out; sensation dropped out of their bodies. There was only a high, keening static in their ears and a hot, almost burning point of touch where their skin met. The chaos of the overwhelming connection bounced between them, magnifying again and again and again until it was all there was, and it _hurt_ , just them and them and them and

                _WE_

_WE ARE NOT PAIN. WE ARE NOT HEAT. WE ARE THE COLD RUSH OF THINNING AIR AND THE COMFORT OF TANGLED LIMBS AND WE BELONG LIKE THIS._

_YOU AND ME AS ONE._

Hiccup—just Hiccup, only not ‘just’, the Drift humming pleasantly between them but no longer trying to tear him apart through the brain stem—was on the ground, panting, limbs shaking like he had tried to swim too far or too fast. His body _heaved_ —ah, but that was because he was collapsed half on-top of Toothless’ neck and shoulders, and Toothless was gasping just as hard as he was.

                So _many_ people were shouting, but the sound of GLaDOS was he most alarming.

                “ _Terminating Drift in 10…9…”_

                “No!” Hiccup yelled, throwing out his hand in desperation. Beneath him, Toothless gave an aborted lunge, roaring out his own protest.

                Miraculously, the countdown paused.

                “J-just,” Hiccup’s teeth clicked together and he clenched his jaw. "Just…give us a moment.”

                He laid his head back down on Toothless’ neck, humming against the soft skin behind his jaw. “Can’t wait to fly like this,” Hiccup murmured.

                Toothless warbled a complaint.

                “Technically, this was _both_ our ideas,” Hiccup pointed out tiredly, gleefully.

                Toothless shifted his shoulder and dumped Hiccup onto the concrete floor, but Hiccup could only stare dazedly up at the dragon’s face.

                “I _felt_ you decide to do that,” he said in wonder, his filter gone, processing out loud in Icelandic because he couldn’t muster the effort to do anything else.

                Toothless’ pupils widened until they almost swallowed the iris, plainly overwhelmed, and he buried his nose in Hiccup’s stomach.

                “Me too, bud,” Hiccup whispered.

                This time, when the Drift was slowly eased away, they let it go and didn’t move until the techs came in to untangle the wires that connected them.

                Hiccup tried for his most winning smile as the Marshal stomped into the training pod. “I’m gonna ride him, and we’re gonna take the kaiju down.”

                The Marshal actually growled at him, but said nothing for long moments, long enough for Hiccup and Toothless to stumble to their feet, leaning heavily on one another and doing their est to stare him down.

                Finally, the Marshal sighed. “Aye, that you might.”


End file.
